AP Human Geography: Unit 4 Key Terms
Antecedent boundary: A boundary line established before an area is populated.
Balkanization: The contentious political process by which a state may break up into smaller countries.
Buffer state: A relatively small country sandwiched between two larger powers. The existence of buffer states may help to prevent dangerous conflicts between powerful countries.
Centrifugal forces: Forces that tend to divide a country.
Centripetal forces: Forces that tend to unite or bind a country together.
Colonialism: The expansion and perpetuation of an empire.
Commonwealth of independent states: Confederacy of independent states of the former Soviet Union that have united because of their common economic and administrative needs.
Compact state: A state that possesses a roughly circular, oval, or rectangular territory in which the distance from the geometric center is relatively equal in all directions.
Confederation: A form of an international organization that brings several autonomous states together for a common purpose.
Democratization: The process of establishing representative and accountable forms of government led by popularly elected officials.
Devolution: The delegation of legal authority from a central government to lower levels of political organization, such as a state or country.
Domino Theory: The idea that political destabilization in one country can lead to collapse of political stability in neighboring countries, starting a chain reaction of collapse.
East/West divide: Geographic separation between the largely democratic and free-market countries of Western Europe and the Americas from the communist and socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Asia.
Electoral college: A certain number of electors from each state proportional to and seemingly representative of that state’s population. Each elector chooses a candidate, believing they are representing their constituency’s choice.
Electoral vote: The choice expressed collectively by the electoral college to determine the president and vice-president of the United States.
Elongated state: A state whose territory is long and narrow in shape.
Enclaves: Any small and relatively homogenous group or region surrounded by another larger and different group or region.
European Union: International organization comprising Western European countries to promote free trade among members.
Exclave: A bounded territory that is part of a particular state but is separated from it by the territory of a different state.
Federalism: A system of government in which power is distributed among certain geographical territories rather than concentrated within a central government.
Fragmented state: A state that is not a contiguous whole but rather separated parts.
Frontier: An area where borders are shifting and weak and where peoples of different cultures or nationalities meet and lay claim to the land.