Unit 1 AP Human Geography Vocab

  1. Human Geography - One of the two major divisions of geography: the spatial analysis of human population, its cultures, activities, and landscapes.  


  1. Physical Geography – One of the two major divisions of systematic geography; the spatial analysis of the structure, processes, and location of the Earth’s natural phenomena such as climate, soil, plants, animals and topography.


  1. Spatial Distribution – physical location of geographic phenomena across space.  


  1. Scale of Analysis – representation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction.  Can be at different levels, e.g. global, state, regional, local, subnational, county etc.


  1. Cartographic Scale– a ratio between a distance on a map and its corresponding distance in the real world.


  1. Sense of Place – State of mind derived through the infusion of a place with meaning and emotion by remembering important events that occurred in that place or by labeling a place with a certain character.


  1. Spatial Interaction – the degree of flow of people, ideas, and goods among places.


  1. Cartography – The art and science of making maps, including data compilation, layout, and design.  


  1. Reference Maps – Maps that show the absolute location of places and geographic features determined by a frame of reference, typically latitude and longitude.


  1. Thematic Maps – Maps that tell stories, typically showing the degree of some attribute or the movement of a geographic phenomenon.


  1. Absolute Location – The position or place of a certain item on the surface of the Earth as expressed in degrees, minutes, and seconds of latitude and longitude.


  1. Global Positioning System (GPS) – Satellite-based system for determining the absolute location of places or geographic features.


  1. Relative Location – The regional position or situation of a place relative to the position of other places.  


  1. Remote Sensing – A method of collecting data or information through the use of instruments such as satellites that are physically distant from the area or object of study.


  1. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) – A collection of computer hardware and software that permits spatial data to be collected, recorded, stored, retrieved, manipulated, analyzed, and displayed to the user.


  1. Mental Map/Activity Space – Picture of the way space is organized as determined by an individual’s perception, impression and knowledge of that space; places where daily activity occurs.  


  1. Formal Region – A type of region marked by a certain degree of homogeneity (sameness) in one or more areas.


  1. Functional Region – A region defined by the particular set of activities or interactions that occur within it. (Job of an area)


  1. Perceptual Region – A region that only exists as a conceptualization or an idea and not as a physically demarcated entity.  (Opinion of an area)


  1. Distance Decay – The declining degree of acceptance of an idea or innovation with increasing time and distance from its point of origin of the source.


  1. Time-Space Convergence – refers to the greatly accelerated movement of goods, information, and ideas during the twentieth century made possible by technological innovations in transportation and communications


  1. Environmental Determinism – The view that the natural environment has a controlling influence over various aspects of human life.


  1. Possibilism – A response to determinism that holds that human decision making, not the environment is the crucial factor in cultural development.  Possibilists view the environment as providing a set of broad constraints that limits the possibilities of human choice.

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