APHuG Vocabulary
Sequent occupance: Imagine a place where different groups of people lived one after another. Each group leaves its mark, like old buildings or traditions. Over time, the place becomes a mix of all these influences. For example, New Orleans has French, Spanish, and American influences, making it a unique city.
This shows how people and the environment interact.
Cultural landscape: This is how people change a natural area to fit their needs and culture. Think of rice terraces in Asia, where mountainsides are carved into steps to grow rice.
It's about how humans and nature mix.
Arithmetic density: This is a simple way to see how crowded a place is. It's the number of people divided by the area of the land. For example, if a city has 1000 people and 10 square miles, the arithmetic density is 100 people per square mile.
It tells you how many people live in a certain area.
Physiological density: This is a more useful way to see how crowded a place is. It's the number of people divided by the amount of land that can be used for farming. For example, if a country has a lot of people but little farmland, it will have a high physiological density.
It shows how much pressure there is on farmland to feed people.
Hearth: This is where new ideas start. Think of Silicon Valley in California, where many tech innovations come from.
It's the birthplace of new ideas that spread to other places.
Diffusion: This is how things spread from one place to another over time. Think of a new fashion trend that starts in one city and then spreads to other cities.
Relocation diffusion: This is when people move and take their ideas with them. For example, when people from Europe migrated to America, they brought their languages and customs with them.
It's about ideas spreading through people moving.
Expansion diffusion: This is when an idea spreads like a snowball getting bigger as it rolls down a hill.
Hierarchical diffusion: This is when ideas spread from important people or places to others. For example, a new fashion trend might start with celebrities and then spread to the general public.
Think of hip-hop music starting in cities and then spreading to other places.
Contagious diffusion: This is when an idea spreads quickly and widely, like a disease. For example, a funny video can go viral on the internet in a matter of hours.
Think of ideas spreading rapidly on the internet.
Stimulus diffusion: This is when an idea inspires a new, but different, idea in another place. For example, McDonald's adapted its menu to fit local tastes in different countries.
Think of how different companies copy each other's ideas, like PC and Apple.
Absolute distance: This is the exact distance between two places, like saying two cities are 100 miles apart.
Relative distance: This is an estimate of the distance between two places, like saying two cities are a few hours' drive apart.
Distribution: This is how things are arranged across the Earth's surface, like where cities are located or where forests grow.
Environmental determinism: This is an old idea that the physical environment controls what people do. For example, people used to think that people in hot climates were lazy.
Absolute location: This is the exact location of a place using latitude and longitude, like saying a city is at 34°N, 118°W.
Relative location: This is where a place is compared to other places, like saying a store is next to the post office.
For example, "My house is west of 394."
Site: This is the physical features of a place, like its climate, soil, and water sources.
Situation: This is where a place is located compared to other places, like saying a city is near a major port.
Space Time Compression: This is how technology makes distances seem smaller. It means it takes less time to travel or communicate between places.
Friction of Distance: This means that the farther away things are, the harder it is to connect with them. It takes more effort, money, or energy to overcome distance.
Spatial interactions decrease with distance.
Distance Decay: This means that the importance of something decreases as you get farther away from it. For example, you're more likely to visit a store that's close to your house than one that's far away.
The internet and e-mail reduce these barriers.
Networks: These are connections between places or people, like transportation routes or social media connections.
Connectivity: This is how connected places are to each other.
Accessibility: This is how easy it is to reach different places.
Space: This is the physical distance between things.
Spatial Distribution: This is how things are arranged in space.
Size: This is how big something is.
Scale: This is how much the world is shrunk down on a map. A small-scale map shows a large area with less detail, while a large-scale map shows a small area with more detail.
Formal Region: This is an area with shared characteristics, like a country where everyone speaks the same language.
Functional Region: This is an area organized around a central point, like a city and its suburbs.
Vernacular Region: This is an area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity, like "the South" in the United States.
Possibilism: This is the idea that the environment puts limits on what people can do, but people can still adjust and change their environment.
Natural Landscape: The original environment before humans changed it.
Pattern: This is how things are arranged in space, like a grid pattern of streets or a random pattern of trees.
Place Name: This is the name given to a place, like Paris or Mount Everest.
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