AP Human Geography Review Notes

Unit 1: Maps and Spatial Data

  • Thematic Maps: Focus on specific topics or themes (e.g., population density, income levels).
  • Reference Maps: Show general geographic information (e.g., boundaries, place names).
  • Map Projections:
    • All map projections have distortion in shape, area, distance, or direction.
    • Mercator Map: Preserves direction but distorts shape and area, especially at high latitudes. Used for naval navigation.
  • GIS (Geographic Information Systems): Layer data on maps to analyze spatial relationships.
  • Research:
    • Quantitative: Uses numerical data (e.g., census). Objective and not up for discussion.
    • Qualitative: Explores attitudes, beliefs, and feelings. Subjective and open to interpretation.
  • Governments and businesses use both types of research for decisions (e.g., school locations, store placement, zoning laws, understanding medium income).
  • Individuals use this info for assessing crime rates and availability of the schools.

Spatial Concepts

  • Technology and communication advancements decrease distance decay, increasing global connectedness.
  • Patterns in space create a unique sense of place or cultural landscape.

Environmental Sustainability

  • Environmental Determinism: Environment restricts societal and cultural development. Certain locations limit growth.
  • Possibilism: Society can shape and modify the environment to suit its needs.

Scale and Scale of Analysis

  • Scale of Analysis: How data is organized (e.g., national, regional, local like countries boundaries vs counties).
  • Scale: The extent of the Earth's surface being viewed.
    • Small Scale Maps: Show large areas with little detail (e.g., world map). Require generalizations.
    • Large Scale Maps: Show small areas with much detail (e.g., county map).

Regions

  • Functional/Nodal Regions: Organized around a central node (e.g., economic activity, travel, communication).
    * Examples: airport and their range or a pizza store and their delivery range.
  • Perceptual/Vernacular Regions: Defined by people's beliefs, feelings, or attitudes (e.g., the Middle East).
  • Formal/Uniform Regions: Geographic areas with common attributes (e.g., economic, social, political, environmental characteristics like state's boundaries).

Unit 2: Population and Migration

  • Population Distribution: Where people live based on opportunities (economic, social, political, environmental).
  • Urban vs. Rural Areas: Large urban areas offer economic and social opportunities, whilst rural offer more land and buildings more dispersed.
  • Population Density:
    • Arithmetic Density: Total people / total land area. total peopletotal land area\frac{total \, people}{total \, land \, area}
    • Physiological Density: Total population / arable land. total populationarable land\frac{total \, population}{arable \, land}
    • Agricultural Density: Number of farmers / arable land. number of farmerstotal arable land\frac{number \, of \, farmers}{total \, arable \, land}
  • Vocabulary: CBR (crude birth rate), CDR (crude death rate), NIR (natural increase rate), growth rate, sex ratios, doubling time, dependency ratios.
  • Population Pyramids:
    • Large base indicates an early stage in the demographic transition model.
    • Top-heavy pyramid indicates a later stage; potential dependency ratio issues.
  • Demographic Transition Model:
    • Stage 1: Low growth; high CBR and CDR cancel each other out.
    • Stage 2: Industrial/Medical Revolution; deaths fall, births remain high => population boom.
    • Stage 3: Urbanization, social/economic opportunities; births fall, moderate growth.
    • Stage 4: Women's opportunities increase; births and deaths match at low rates => zero population growth (ZPG).
    • Stage 5 (Debated): Deaths rise above births => population decrease.
  • Epidemiologic Transition Model:
    • Mirrors the demographic transition model, focusing on causes of death in each stage.
    • Stage 5 has variants and differences.
  • Population Policies:
    • Pro-natalism: Policies to increase birth rates.
    • Anti-natalism: Policies to restrict population growth.
  • Malthus and Neo-Malthusians:
    • Malthus: Population grows exponentially, food production arithmetically => Malthusian catastrophe (exceeding carrying capacity).
    • Neo-Malthusians: Broaden scope to all resources, not just food. Believe population will exceed Earth's carrying capacity.
  • Migration:
    • Push Factors: Reasons to leave an area.
    • Pull Factors: Reasons to move to an area.
    • Reasons for moving: political, economic, social, and environmental reasons.
    • Most of the time due to economics.
  • Types of Migration:
    • Forced Migration: Migrants life, or theirs family's life in jeopardy.
    • Voluntary Migration: Migrant chooses to migrate on their own without persecution or death.
  • Counter Migration: When people are moving from point A to point B, those places are now connected and they'll influence each other.
  • Key Concepts for Unit 2: Demographic Transition Model, population pyramids, vocabulary, types of migration, diffusion, acculturation, assimilation, and cultural resistance.

Unit 3: Cultural Patterns and Processes

  • Cultural Relativism: Viewing a culture through its own perspective.
  • Ethnocentrism: Judging another culture based on one's own cultural standards.
  • Culture: Shared practices, beliefs, attitudes, customs, technologies, and food of a group.
  • Cultural Landscape: Observable culture in the landscape (land use patterns, agricultural practices, religious/linguistic characteristics, architectural styles).
  • Culture shows insight into a society such as:
    • Gender roles.
    • Types of food.
    • Goods and services offered.
  • Cultural Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces: Push and pull society together, creating a sense of place and identity.
  • Diffusion:
    • Relocation Diffusion: Movement of a cultural trait from one place to another.
    • Expansion Diffusion: Growth in the number of people adopting a cultural trait.
      • Hierarchical Diffusion: Top-down diffusion through a system of structures.
      • Contagious Diffusion: Spreads in all directions, allowing access without barriers.
      • Stimulus Diffusion: Adapts to cultural traits of the area it diffuses to.
  • Historical Diffusion Examples:
    • Colonialism/Imperialism: Led to the spread of English (lingua franca like the French language).
    • Religion: Christianity and Islam diffused globally.
  • Modern Diffusion:
    • Urbanization.
    • Globalization especially through the Internet and advancements in transportation and communication.
  • Space-Time Compression: Communication with people all over the world, reducing distance decay.
  • Cultural Changes Due to Diffusion:
    • Acculturation.
    • Assimilation.
    • Syncretism.
    • Multiculturalism.
  • Cultural Resistance: Isolation to protect unique cultural identity (e.g., folk and indigenous cultures).
  • Religions:
    • Universalizing Religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism. Want to convert more followers.
    • Ethnic Religions: Judaism, Hinduism. Seeking to protect their identity.
  • Focus on the impact on the cultural landscape, hearth, diffusion, and major beliefs.
  • Language: focus on how language is diffused and how it impacts the cultural landscape.
    • Language families, origins, diffusion, dialects.

Unit 4: Political Patterns and Processes

  • Nation vs. State:
    • Nation: Shared history, cultural identity, self-determination.
    • State: Permanent population, sovereign government, recognized by other states.
  • Nation-State: Homogeneous state made up of one nation.
  • Multinational State: Multiple nations coexisting peacefully under one state.
  • Multi-State Nation: A nation existing in separate states (e.g., Korean nation in North and South Korea).
  • Stateless Nation: A nation without a state (e.g., the Kurdish nation).
  • Self-Determination: Nation's right to govern itself without external influence for cultural identity.
  • Colonialism and Imperialism: Political boundaries created through conquest and diffusion.
  • Shatter Belt Regions: Regions caught between external fighting powers.
  • Neocolonialism: Economic or political influence to control a country without direct occupation.
  • Political Boundaries:
    • Relic Boundaries: No longer exist but impact the cultural landscape (e.g., Berlin Wall).
    • Antecedent Boundaries: Existed before human settlement.
    • Subsequent Boundaries: Based on ethnic groups and cultures.
    • Consequent Boundaries: Divide cultural groups.
    • Superimposed Boundaries: Created by a foreign state (e.g., many African countries).
    • Geometric Boundaries: Straight lines, often along parallels of latitude.
  • Law of the Sea:
    • Territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles off the coastline.
    • Contiguous zone extends 24 nautical miles off the coast.
    • Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extends 200 nautical miles off the coastline.
    • Anything past the EEZ is international waters.
  • Gerrymandering: Redistricting voting districts to favor a political party.
  • Unitary vs. Federal States:
    • Unitary State: Power concentrated in the central government.
    • Federal State: Power shared between national and regional governments.
  • Centripetal vs. Centrifugal Forces:
    • Centrifugal Forces: Terrorism, irredentism, isolated cultural groups, devolution.
    • Centripetal Forces: Unite a country prevent devolution (the transfer of power from a national government down to a regional government).
  • State Sovereignty: Right to govern itself.
    • Challenged by devolution, advancements in technology, foreign interference through social media, and supernational organizations (EU, NATO, UN).
    • Joining supernational organizations means giving up some sovereign control but gaining benefits like solving global issues, trade agreements, and military alliances.

Unit 5: Agriculture and Rural Land Use

  • Intensive Agriculture: Located near population centers, maximizing production with labor and capital.
    * Examples: plantation, mixed crop, market gardening.
  • Extensive Agriculture: Located farther from population centers, using more land and manual labor.
    * Examples: shifting cultivation, nomadic herding, ranching.
  • Subsistence vs. Commercial Agriculture:
    • Subsistence: Focuses on feeding the farmer's family/community.
    • Commercial: Focuses on generating a profit.
  • Settlement Patterns:
    • Clustered Settlements: High population density.
    • Dispersed Settlements: Low population density.
    • Linear Settlement Patterns: Located along a river, road, or train.
  • Survey Methods:
    • Meats and Bounds: Short distances, based on geographic features.
    • Long Lots: Narrow parcels with transportation connections.
    • Township and Range: Uses longitude and latitude to create a grid-like system.
  • Agricultural Hearths:
    • Fertile Crescent.
    • Indus Valley River.
  • Diffusion lead to the colombian exchange.
  • Agricultural Revolutions:
    • First Agricultural Revolution Started sedentary agriculture.
    • Second Agricultural Revolution: Industrial Revolution; new technologies (seed drill), greater food surplus, the enclosure movement, globalized economy, population boom.
    • Green Revolution: GMOs, hybrid plants, chemical fertilizers, pesticides => higher yields.
  • New Agricultural Practices:
    • Mono Cropping: Growing the same crop each year to increase production, but it can deplete the nutrients in the land.
    • Monoculture: Growing one type of crop at a time, switching after each harvest.
    • Economy of Scale: Thanks to technology, farmers can now produce crops cheaper rates when producing more quantity of it.
    • Value-Added Specialty Crop: Crops that gain value through production (e.g., wheat to flour).
  • Debates: GMOs, chemical fertilizers, impact on the environment and workers.
  • Movements countering ethical, health and environmental concerns:
    • Organic farming.
    • Local food movements.
    • Free trade movements.
    • Urban farming.
    • Community supported agriculture (CSA).
  • Women in Agriculture:
    • Developing countries: Subsistence farmers in the informal economy, lower wages, less opportunity, more likely to be victims of exploitation.
    • Developed countries: Offered more economic, social, and political opportunities in society, closer to achieving equality.
  • Bid Rent Theory: Relationship between land prices and distance from an urban area (large market).
    • Land prices decrease farther away from urban areas and land becomes available because we have a lower population density.
    • Land prices increase closer to the urban.
  • Von Thunen's Model: Spatial layout of agriculture around a market.
    • Market at the center.
    • Dairy and horticulture (1st ring).
    • Forest (2nd ring).
    • Grains and field crops (3rd ring).
    • Livestock farthest out because it needs the most land for it's production (4th ring).

Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land Use

  • Site and Situation Factors:
    • Site Factors: Unique characteristics of a place like climate, natural resources, absolute location. A unique quality of a place.
    • Situation Factors: Connections between different places, rivers, roads, airports, ports. Connectivity of settlements.
  • Connectivity and Settlements: Diffusion of trends through world cities and urban areas and spread into surrounding settlement.
  • Gravity Model: Larger settlements are more likely to have people and places interact with.
  • Christaller's Central Place Theory:Larger settlements/specialized businesses have a larger range.
  • Urban Hierarchy: Cities, towns, villages, hamlets.
  • Central Place Theory for Services: More specialized services have a larger range and threshold.
  • Settlement Size and Distribution:
    • Primate City Rule: Largest settlement has double the population of the second largest.
    • Rank-Size Rule: Largest settlement has about half the population of the second largest, and so on. Means more urban areas more economic development is more evenly dispersed.
  • Urban Models:
    • Burgess Concentric Zone Model: Cities grow outwards from the CBD in rings.
    • Hoyt Sector Model: City develops in wedges with the CBD in the center.
    • Harris and Ullman Multiple Nuclei Model: City has multiple CBDs or nodes.
    • Galactic Model (Periphery Model): Expansion of the multiple nuclei model, edge cities form.
    • Latin American City Model: Spine connects the CBD to a wealthy shopping district, disamenity zone (high poverty neighborhoods).
    • Sub-Saharan African City Model: Three CBDs, informal settlements (squatter settlements) around the urban area.
    • Southeast Asian City Model: Based around a port with a government zone.
  • Density Gradient:
    • High density near the CBD => build vertically because there's not a lot of space.
    • Medium density => single-family homes or multi-family homes like triplexes.
    • Low density in suburbs => large front and back yards, plenty of space.
  • Infrastructure: Public transportation, schools, and healthcare attract residents back into the urban area.
  • Sustainable cities policies such as:
    • Smart growth policies.
    • Urban growth boundaries.
    • New urbanism.
    • Green belts.
  • Controversy: Fear we'll see more segregation, unequal economic development, loss of historical neighborhoods reducing the amount of sense of place built for generations.
  • Consequences of Government/Urban Policy:
    • Redlining led to discriminatory practices in home loans, especially for the minority communities.
    • Blockbusting.
    • White flight segregated neighborhoods even more which lead to unequal economic development based off race.
  • Gentrification:
    • Raises property values/increases wealth in low-income neighborhoods.
    • Wealthier communities move back, push out current residents.

Unit 7: Industrial and Economic Development

  • Globalization: Drastic changes since the Industrial Revolution in production, migration, urbanization, settlement.
  • Economies:
    • Formal Economy: Jobs regulated by the government.
    • Informal Economy: Jobs unregulated or monitored by the government.
  • Economic Sectors:
    • Primary Sector: Natural resources.
    • Secondary Sector: Manufacturing.
    • Tertiary Sector: Service jobs.
      • Quaternary Sector: Collecting and gathering information.
      • Quinary Sector: Decision-making (government officials, CEOs).
  • Job Distribution:
    • Core countries: More jobs in the tertiary sector.
    • Semi-periphery/periphery countries: More jobs in the primary and secondary sectors.
  • International Division of Labor: Companies in core countries take advantage of cheap resources/labor in developing countries.
  • Offshoring: Moving jobs from one's home country to another.
  • Manufacturing Zones: Make it economically advantageous for multinational corporations to relocate production in developing countries. They hope to benefit from the multiplier effect.
  • Post-Fordist Methods of Production, Just-in-Time Delivery, Agglomeration, Growth Poles: Ways to increase profit margins and global trade.
  • Neoliberal Policies: Free trade agreements (NAFTA), World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund.
  • Isolationist Policies: Countries utilize tariffs which are taxes and imports trying to motivate companies to move back to their own country.
  • Comparative Advantage: Specializing production of a good or service to trade for other products which decreases their opportunity costs and increasing the amount of goods and services their citizens have.
  • Gross Indicators:
    • GDP (Gross Domestic Product), GNP (Gross National Product), GNI (Gross National Income) measure the formal economy.
    • Gender Inequality Index, Human Development Index to better understand inequality, expected years of schooling, life expectancy, or standard of living.
  • Women in the Economy:
    • Likely to be in subsistence agriculture or the informal economy, low wages, less protection.
    • Microloans: Loans given by individuals within a society not by a government organization.
  • Theories and Models:
    • Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth:
      • Traditional society => subsistence agriculture.
      • Preconditions for takeoff => demand for raw materials.
      • Takeoff => urbanization, job opportunities.
      • Drive to maturity => specialization, global trade.
      • Age of mass consumption => many jobs in the tertiary sector.
    • Wallerstein's World System Theory: Economic imbalance in the world, core countries take advantage of less developed countries and depend on Periphery countries and Semi-Periphery to produce their goods and services.
      • Dependency Theory: Core countries disproportionately benefit because the most of the perforated countries economies are bases around exporting their goods in core countries instead of relying one on themselfs.
      • Commodity Dependence: When developing countries entire economy is based around one commodity and if the price of it decreases it will devastate their entire economy.
        Shows the difficulty for developing countries to reach the same economic level as core countries.