AP Human Geography Flashcards

Geography and Maps

  • Human geography analyzes spatial patterns and relationships.
  • Cartography is the science of mapmaking.
  • Two main types of maps:
    • Reference maps: Show locations of human and physical objects.
    • Thematic maps: Show spatial arrangements of features or data.
  • Spatial patterns include absolute and relative location/distance, direction, and elevation, dispersal, and clustering, all which can be portrayed on physical, political, choropleth, symbol, dot, topographic, and isoline maps.
  • Map projections distort spatial properties, categorized as Shape, Area, Distance, and Direction (SADD).
  • Common map projections: Mercator, Robinson, Winkel Tripel.

Thinking Geographically

  • Geographers use a spatial perspective to understand patterns and relationships created by human activities.
  • Human geography examines social science disciplines, focusing on population, migration, culture, politics, economic development, and land use.

Geospatial Data and Technologies

  • Geospatial data: Information related to locations on Earth.
  • Data types:
    • Quantitative: Numerical data (e.g., income, census, birthrates).
    • Qualitative: Non-numerical data (e.g., interviews, travel narratives, visual observations).
  • Geospatial technologies:
    • GPS (Global Positioning System)
    • GIS (Geographic Information System)
    • Remote sensing
    • Online mapping
  • Used for personal, business, and governmental purposes (ex. GPS on cell phone, optimal locations for restaurants, schools, stadiums, etc.)
  • Geographic concepts include distance decay, distribution, and networks.

Humans and the Environment

  • Cultural ecology: Study of human culture and its relationship with the environment.
  • Theories of cultural ecology:
    • Environmental determinism: Belief that the environment causes human behavior.
    • Possibilism: Belief that the environment influences or limits human behavior, but does not cause it.
  • Emerging issues: sustainability, natural resource use, and land use.

Sense of Place and Regionalization

  • Place: Locations on Earth with human and physical characteristics, arousing emotions and creating a sense of place.
  • Toponyms: Names given to locations, reflecting people or physical features.
  • Placelessness: Locations lacking strong emotional ties.
  • Regions: Defined by unifying characteristics, spatial patterns, or human activities.
    • Formal region: Defined by a unifying physical or cultural trait (e.g. climate or language).
    • Functional region: Organized around a central point (e.g. metropolitan area).
    • Perceptual/vernacular region: Based on perception (e.g., "the South").
  • Boundaries of regions are always changing, overlapping, and disputed.

From Local to Global

  • Globalization: Increased interconnectedness of humans through communication and technology.
  • Time-space compression: Reduced travel times over increased distance due to technological advancements.
  • Scales of analysis: global, regional, national, and local levels.
    • Local refers to immediate surroundings, such as neighborhood, city, county, and state.
    • National refers to a country.
    • Regional refers to a collection of units such as U.S. states or a collection of countries.
    • Global refers to the context of most or all of Earth.

Population Distribution

  • Ecumene: Portion of Earth occupied by permanent human settlement.
  • Historical influences: proximity to water for ocean coastlines and rivers.
  • Avoidance of areas: too high, wet, dry, or cold.
  • Largest population clusters: South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Europe, West Africa, and Eastern North America.
  • Arithmetic density: the number of people in an area.
  • Physiological density: the number of people per unit of arable land.
  • Agricultural density: the number of farmers per unit of arable land.

Demographic Data

  • Demography: Statistical study of human populations.
  • Factors of population change: births, deaths, and migration.
  • Natural Increase Rate (NIR): births - deaths.
  • Crude Birth Rate (CBR): number of live births per 1,000 people.
  • Crude Death Rate (CDR): number of deaths per 1,000 people.
  • Infant Mortality Rate (IMR): number of deaths per 1,000 live births.
  • Sex ratio: ratio of males to females in a population.
  • Tools to analyze population:
    • Doubling times
    • J-curves
    • S-curves

Demographic Transition Model (DTM)

  • A five-stage model illustrating changes in birth and death rates to explain demographic conditions.
  • Stage 1: High birth and death rates reflective of hunting and gathering societies.
  • Stage 2: (e.g., Ethiopia) Large base on population pyramid indicates high birth rates due to lack of access to contraceptives, education, and job opportunities for women.
  • Stage 3: (e.g., Mexico) Narrowing base reflects decreasing fertility and increasing access to contraceptives, education, and jobs for women.
  • Stage 4: (e.g., Iceland) Top widening shows people living longer, low fertility rates due to women's participation in economic/political decisions.
  • Stage 5: (e.g., Japan) Top largest as population grays, deaths outnumber births.

Demographic Consequences

  • Level of economic development influences demographic characteristics; developing countries have higher NIR than developed ones.
  • Dependency ratio: ratio of non-workers to workers.
  • Pro-natalist policies: encourage births.
  • Anti-natalist policies: discourage births.
  • Thomas Malthus: Predicted exponential population growth would lead to food shortages.
  • Neo-Malthusians: Apply Malthus's theory to resources like energy, water, and arable land.

Migration

  • Migration: Permanent move to a new location.
  • Push factors: cause emigration.
  • Pull factors: attract immigration.
  • Intervening obstacle: prevents migration.
  • Types of voluntary migration:
    • Transhumance: seasonal migration of nomadic herders.
    • Chain migration.
    • Circular migration.
    • Guest worker migration.
  • Forced migration: slavery, refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), asylum seekers.
  • Largest migration flows: rural to urban, developing to developed world.
  • Ernst Ravenstein's laws for migration: migrants are young adults moving shorter distances.

Culture and the Cultural Landscape

  • Culture: Beliefs and artifacts depicting values and social institutions; can be material or non-material.
  • Folk culture: typical of isolated, homogenous communities.
  • Popular culture: seen in large, heterogenous societies with access to technology.
  • Cultural landscape: Human imprint on the environment.

Diffusion

  • Diffusion: Spread of ideas, behaviors, and information.
  • Relocation diffusion and expansion diffusion
  • Expansion diffusion types: contagious, stimulus, hierarchical, and reverse hierarchical.
  • Syncretism: Combining elements of different cultures to create a new cultural idea.
  • Colonialism, imperialism, and trade diffused cultural practices historically.
  • Cultural convergence: Cultures become similar over time.
  • Cultural divergence: Cultures become less similar over time.

Consequences of Diffusion

  • Diffusion has both good and bad consequences.
  • Acculturation: Group adopts both leaving and entering cultures.
  • Assimilation: Migratory group resembles entered culture.
  • Multiculturalism: Co-existence of cultures.
  • Nativism: Belief that foreign cultures should be excluded.

The Geography of Languages

  • Language: Mutually understood communication sounds.
  • Dialect: Regional variety of a language.
  • Isogloss: Boundary between linguistic differences.
  • Estimates: over 6,000 spoken languages.
  • Most spoken native language: Mandarin Chinese.
  • Most spoken language: English.
  • Lingua franca: Third language used for communication between speakers of different languages (English).
  • Languages organized into families (e.g., Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan).

The Geography of Religions

  • Religion influences the use of space.
  • Ethnic religion: Related to a particular ethnicity (Hinduism, Judaism).
  • Universalizing religion: Appeals to all people (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism).
  • Religions are categorized as branches, denominations, and sects.
  • Fundamentalism: Strict interpretation of holy texts.
  • Conservatism: belief with some human interpretation
  • Liberalism: High degree of human interpretation.

Globalization

  • Globalization: Worldwide scope process.
  • Increases interaction between places, regardless of distance.
  • Economy is characterized by globalization and interdependence.
  • Transnational corporations operate in multiple countries.
  • Cultural landscapes are increasingly similar due to globalization.

Political Units

  • Political units: organized space due to historical/modern spread of people/ideas.
  • State: independent country with sovereignty.
  • Nation: group sharing culture; desire self-determination.
  • Stateless nations: Kurds, Palestinians.
  • Nation-state: Nation corresponds to state boundaries (Japan, Iceland).
  • Multi-state nation: Nation spanning multiple states.
  • Multi-national state: State with multiple nations (United Kingdom, Russia).
  • Autonomous/semi-autonomous regions: some self-rule, but not total sovereignty (Greenland, Native American reservations).
  • Geopolitics: Relationship between geography and international politics.

Political Boundaries

  • Influences where humans live.
  • Defined: Established by legal document.
  • Delimited: Show territory extent on map.
  • Demarcated: Identified with physical objects.
  • Maritime boundaries: cross water.
  • United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS): establishes territorial claims in ocean waters.
  • Relic boundaries: no longer separate, but remain on landscape (Berlin Wall).
  • Subsequent boundaries: drawn due to cultural or economic differences.
  • Antecedent boundaries: separate before settlement (US/Canada border along 49th parallel).
  • Physical boundaries: Follow physical features.
  • Geometric boundaries: Straight lines drawn by humans.
  • Superimposed boundaries: Drawn by outside forces (African boundaries drawn by Europeans).

Political Governance

  • Territoriality: Connection of human activities to land.
  • Unitary states: Central government power (France, China).
  • Federal states: Power divided (United States, Germany).
  • Gerrymandering: Redrawing legislative boundaries for political advantage.

Devolution

  • Devolution: Transfer of power from central to sub-unit governments.
  • Devolutionary forces: physical separation, ethnic competition, genocide, terrorism, irredentism.
  • Sub-nationalism: Pride/loyalty to a sub-national group (Quebec, Scotland).
  • Creation of autonomous/semi-autonomous regions.
  • Disintegration of states: Soviet Union, South Sudan.
  • Balkanization: Fragmentation along cultural lines (Yugoslavia).
  • Supranationalism: Alliances where countries give up power to the collective.

Global Cooperation

  • States engage in trade agreements and political alliances.
  • Supranational organizations: Economic, political, or cultural (UN, NAFTA, EU, ASEAN, OPEC).
  • Creation of supranational organizations may challenge sovereignty.

Centripetal & Centrifugal Forces

  • Centripetal forces: Unite people.
  • Centrifugal forces: Divide people.
  • Can be economic, social, political, or environmental forces.

Agriculture Types and Regions

  • Agriculture: Intentional modification of Earth to raise animals or crops.
  • Commercial agriculture: for profit.
  • Subsistence agriculture: to feed the farmer.
  • Intensive agriculture: more cost per space (scarce land).
  • Extensive agriculture: less cost per space (plentiful land).
  • Types of intensive agriculture:
    • Market gardening: growing fruits and vegetables.
    • Mixed crop & livestock farming: growing crops and raising animals.
    • Plantations: large farms specializing in one crop (coffee, cacao, sugarcane, bananas).
  • Types of extensive agriculture:
    • Nomadic herding (pastoral nomadism): herding animals in places unable to grow crops (cattle, sheep, camels).
    • Transhumance: seasonal migration of nomadic herders.
    • Livestock ranching: grazing animals over a large area or confined area (feedlot).
    • Shifting cultivation: slash-and-burn technique.
  • Climate influences agriculture.
    • Mediterranean farming: hot/dry summers, mild winters (olives, figs, grapes).
    • Shifting cultivation: tropical environments.
    • Nomadic herding: hot/dry environments.
  • Rural areas: most of Earth's land; dominated by agriculture.

Agriculture Revolution

  • Technological advancements significantly impacted the way humans grow and consume food.
  • For most of history, humans were hunter-gatherers.
  • First Agriculture Revolution (Neolithic Revolution): domestication of plants and animals.
  • Second agricultural revolution: Mechanization and commercialization of agriculture.
  • Third Agricultural Revolution (Green Revolution):
    • High-yield seeds (hybridization and genetic modification).
    • Increased use of fertilizers and pesticides.
    • Increased crop production (corn, wheat, rice).

Survey Methods and Rural Settlements

  • Land surveying: measuring and determining extent of boundaries.
  • Survey methods in the United States:
    • Metes and bounds: location of physical objects (trees, rivers, large rocks).
    • Township and range: man-made base lines and meridians creating rectangular plots.
    • Long lot: long, thin sections of land with access to a river.
  • Rural settlements:
    • Nucleated: close proximity of houses.
    • Dispersed: houses are further apart.
    • Linear: follow lines forged by roads, rivers and railroads.

Globalization and Challenges of Agriculture

  • Economy of scale in agriculture has increased the carrying capacity of land.
  • Agricultural innovations: genetically modified organisms (GMOs), aquaculture.
  • Transportation has created a global network of agriculture through complex commodity chains.
  • Agribusiness: integration of steps in the food production industry.
  • Accompanying agricultural innovations are debates over sustainability, water and soil use, reductions in biodiversity, and fertilizer/pesticide overuse.
  • Globalization of food has led to consumer conscious movements such as urban farming, community supported agriculture (CSA), organic farming & value-added specialty crops, fair trade, and eat-local food movements.

Von Thünen Model

  • Von Thünen Model explains the transportation cost associated with distance from the market.
  • Intensive farming needs to be nearer the market, whereas extensive farming can take place farther from the market largely based on bid-rent theory
  • Transportation costs increase with distance from the market.

Consequences of Agriculture

  • Humans can alter the landscape to meet agricultural needs.
  • Terrace farming: steps into hills.
  • Irrigation.
  • Wetlands draining.
  • Deforestation.
  • Other environmental consequences: pollution, land cover change, desertification, soil salinization and resource overuse.

Urban sustainability

  • Sustainable design initiatives: policies to conserve/preserve urban systems (mixed land use, walkable/bikeable routes, transportation-oriented development, New Urbanism, greenbelts, slow-growth cities).
  • Criticisms include the potential of increased housing costs, de facto segregation, and the loss of historical character of a place.
  • Major challenges to urban sustainability are urban and suburban sprawl, sanitation, climate change, air/water quality, increased energy use, and ecological footprints of cities

Origin & Influences of Urbanization

  • Urbanization: the process by which towns and cities develop.
  • Fertile Crescent in modern-day Southwest Asia/ Middle East.
  • Proximity to water to provide humans with irrigation for crops, food products, and a method for transporting goods and people.
  • Improvements in transportation and communication
  • Architectural improvements such as high-rise buildings and skyscrapers.
  • High-density housing inner core and low-density housing in periphery of cities.

Cities and Globalization

  • Megacity: 10–20 million people.
  • Metacity: >20 million people.
  • World cities: London, New York, and Tokyo.
  • Suburbanization: Residents of the developed world are moving away from urban cores to the suburbs.
  • Decentralization: Urban centers lose population.
  • Sprawl: Continuous and unrestricted build-up of urban and suburban areas.

Global Models & Theories

  • Burgess concentric zone model: City growth occurs in rings outward from the CBD.
  • Hoyt sector model: City growth occurs in sectors outward from the CBD.
  • Harris & Ullman multiple nuclei model: City growth around nodes, leading to multiple CBDs.
  • Galactic city model: Important periphery nodes linked by roadways.
  • Bid-rent theory: Land value decreases with distance from the CBD.
  • Latin America city model: Displays characteristics of the typical Latin America city
  • Southeast Asia city model: Displays characteristics of the typical Southeast Asian city and the role of colonialism/imperialism
  • Africa city model: Displays characteristics of the typical African city and the role of colonialism/imperialism
  • Rank-size rule: Inside a country, the nth largest settlement = 1/n the pop. of the largest city
  • Primary city rule: Inside a country, the largest city is more than double the pop. of the next largest city
  • Gravity model: Interactions between cities is based on population size and distance.
  • Christaller's central place theory: Theory that uses hexagons to explain the number, size, distribution, and hinterlands (market areas) of cities and settlements

Urban Challenges

  • Housing discrimination and redlining, blackbusting. housing affordability.
  • Redlining: Banks designate areas where they won't lend money.
  • Environmental challenges: Environmental injustices/Increased levels of pollution, growth of disamenity zones or zones of abandonment.
  • Responses: Laws, government policies, gentrification, urban renewal.

Industrialization & Economic Sectors

  • Industrial Revolution: Technological improvements that increased production, United Kingdom in the late 1700s.
  • Cottage industry: People made tools, clothing, and farming equipment in their own home.
  • Primary sector: Natural resource extraction (farming, mining).
  • Secondary sector: Manufacturing (paper mill).
  • Tertiary sector: Provision of services (nurses, waitresses).
  • Quaternary sector: Knowledge-oriented services (financial planning, blogging).
  • Quinary sector: Human services, decision-making, and policy creation (government).

Sustainable Development

  • Sustainable development: Policies designed to prevent resource depletion/mass consumptions/impacts of climate change/effects of pollution
  • Ecotourism: Tourism of a location’s natural environment which employs to protect the environment while also providing jobs to the local community.
  • UN Sustainable Development Goals: policies such as quality education, no poverty, zero hunger, and gender equality.

Measuring Development

  • Human Development Index (HDI): UN measure of development (social, demographic, economic factors: knowledge, life expectancy, income).
  • Gender Inequality Index (GII) Specifically measures reproductive health, which also measures female empowerment and labor market participation

Development Theories

  • Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth: 5-stage model of how countries advance economically.
  • Wallerstein’s World System Theory: 3-tier model (core, periphery, semi-periphery).
  • Dependency Theory: Countries may depend on other countries for economic survival.
  • Commodity Dependence: Some countries are too dependent on the sale of commodities. A country whose total exports include 60% or more of commodities are considered “commodity dependent”

The Global Economy

  • International trade, creating a complex system of interdependence based on complementarity and comparative advantage.
  • Complementarity: Engaging in trade can compliment both parties involved.
  • Comparative advantage: Countries should take advantage of what it can do more efficiently than other countries and offer it for trade at the international level.
  • Fostered an international economy and greater globalization. Trade agreements to increase trade to help foster economic development.
  • The negative consequence of a more globalized economy is the shared effect of a financial crisis.