AP Human Geography Notes

Geographic Data and Maps

  • Collecting Geographic Data

    • Data can be qualitative or quantitative.
    • Data can be collected by individuals or organizations.
    • Modern geospatial technologies include remote sensing, GPS, and GIS.

  • Map Fundamentals

    • Different map types (isolines, cartograms, etc.) have different purposes.
    • All maps are selective due to:
      • Cartographers’ decisions about map features, such as design and scale
      • Distortions caused by map projections (Mercator, Fuller, Robinson, etc.)

  • Using Geographic Data

    • Human geographers use data to help individuals, businesses, organizations, and governments make decisions in areas such as economics and urban planning.

Geographic Analysis

  • Spatial Perspective

    • Geographers use a spatial perspective as a framework to look at Earth in terms of relationships among various places.
    • A spatial perspective uses concepts including absolute location, relative location, time-space compression, the distance decay effect, place, and flows.
    • The term place refers to the unique characteristics of a location.

  • Humans & the Environment

    • Environmental geographers strive for sustainability.
    • There are two views of human-environment interactions: environmental determinism and possibilism.

  • Scales of Analysis

    • Geographers may do analysis at a global, regional, national, or local scale.
    • Geographers consider how processes at one scale affect those on other scales.
    • Geographers must not assume that analysis at one scale is true for other scales.

Regional Analysis

  • Regional Analysis
    • A region has a unifying social or physical characteristic.
    • The types of regions are functional, formal, and perceptual/vernacular.
    • Regional boundaries can be imprecise.
    • Regional analysis can provide insights at the local, national, or global scales.

Key Takeaways 1

  • Geographers use maps and data for analysis and decision-making.
    • Geographers collect both quantitative and qualitative data from a variety of sources, including geospatial technologies.
    • Cartographers make decisions about a map’s features depending on the purpose of the map.
    • All maps contain distortions.

Key Takeaways 2

  • Geographers use a spatial perspective to analyze the relationships between places.

Key Takeaways 3

  • Analysis may occur at a local, regional, national, or global scale.
  • Geographers study different types of regions and apply what they learn at all scales of analysis.

Human Populations

  • Population Distribution

    • Physical factors (like climate conditions, presence of arable land, natural obstacles) and human factors (like national borders, religion) influence population distribution.
    • Patterns revealed by population density analysis vary based on scale.

  • Calculating Population Density

    • Population density can be calculated three different ways: Arithmetic, Physiological, and Agricultural. Each reveals different info about the pressure placed on the land.

  • Impacts of Populations

    • Population distribution and density impact political, social, and economic processes.
    • Carrying capacity describes the maximum population a given area is capable of supporting; this varies based on the land itself, social factors, and technology

  • Analyzing Population Composition

    • The scale used for population analysis impacts what can be measured at what detail.
    • Population pyramids show trends about age and sex.

Population Changes

  • Population Dynamics

    • Populations grow or decline based on the relationship among fertility, mortality, and migration; these factors are impacted by cultural, economic, political, and social forces.
    • The rate of natural increase is the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths. More births than deaths indicates population growth.

  • The Demographic Transition Model & Malthusian Theory

    • The Demographic Transition Model explains the changes in population demographics in relation to a society’s economic development over time. It has four phases.
    • The Epidemiological Transition entails population growth due to improved food supply and health care.
    • Thomas Malthus predicted the population, which grows geometrically (exponentially), would eventually outpace food production, which grows arithmetically (linearly).
    • Malthus failed to anticipate advances in food production.

Migration

  • Causes of Migration & Forced and Voluntary Migration

    • Push factors are reasons someone would want to move AWAY FROM a location. Pull factors are reasons someone would want to move TO a location.
    • Forced migrations occur when people are involuntarily relocated. This includes slavery and events that produce refugees & asylum seekers.
    • Voluntary migrations occur when people relocate by choice. This includes transnational, internal, transhumance, step, and chain migration.

  • Effects of Migration

    • Large-scale migration has major social, political, economic, and cultural impacts.

Population Change: Issues

  • Population Policies

    • Pronatalism encourages higher birth rates, while antinatalism discourages them.
    • Population control policies may also involve limiting (or expanding) immigration.

  • Women and Demographic Change

    • Birth rate and population growth are related to the degree of access women have to education, contraception, and career opportunities.

  • Aging Populations

    • Better healthcare, longer life expectancy, and low birth rates → an aging population
    • The dependency ratio refers to the ratio of children & retirees to workers.

Key Takeaways 1

  • Population analysis provides insights into cultural, political, and economic patterns.
    • Both physical and human factors impact population distribution.
    • Geographers calculate several different types of population densities.
    • Population pyramids show trends about age and sex.

Key Takeaways 2

  • Changes in population are due to mortality, fertility, and migration.
    • The Demographic Transition Model and Malthusian theory describe population change over time.

Key Takeaways 3

  • Push/pull factors impact migration, which may be voluntary or forced.

Key Takeaways 4

  • Issues related to population change include official population policies and the impacts of the changing roles of women & aging populations.

Cultures

  • Culture

    • Culture includes aspects that are material (such as food, mode of dress, artifacts, and land use) and nonmaterial (such as shared practices, language, customs, and attitudes).

  • Cultural Differences

    • Cultural relativism seeks to understand a culture on its own terms. Ethnocentrism views one's own culture as the lens through which to study the rest of the world.

  • Cultural Landscapes

    • Cultural landscapes are the products of interactions between humans and their physical environments. Many factors shape them, including ethnicity and gender.
    • Sequent occupancy is the process by which each civilization leaves an influence on the cultural landscape, impacting the civilizations that come after them.

  • Cultural Patterns

    • Cultural patterns vary across geographic regions because of differences in both the landscape and in local cultures.
    • Language, religion, and ethnicity are especially important factors in terms of centripetal and centrifugal forces.

Cultural Diffusion

  • Types of Diffusion

    • Expansion diffusion includes contagious, stimulus, and hierarchical diffusion.
    • Relocation diffusion entails people physically migrating to a new place.

  • Diffusion of Language

    • Languages (such as Spanish) and language families (such as Indo-European) diffuse from cultural hearths.
    • Colonialism and economic globalization has accelerated language extinction.
    • Types of languages (such as creoles and lingua francas) and language features (such as toponyms), can reveal patterns of cultural diffusion.

  • Diffusion of Religion

    • Universalizing religions have doctrines that appeal to people from any region of the globe, and its members are numerous and widespread. It seeks to expand its membership, often using missionaries to recruit new followers.
    • An ethnic religion is associated with a particular ethnic or tribal group. It is passed down through birth, does not seek converts, and is often found close to its hearth.

  • Cultural Change Over Time
    * A practice remains in its hearth but also expands to surrounding areas.

Historical and Contemporary Causes of Diffusion

  • Colonialism, imperialism, and trade all help to influence the creation, spread, and extinction of cultural practices.
  • Urbanization, globalization, and advances in communication technologies all influence culture diffusion, especially in the modern world.

Effects of Diffusion

  • Acculturation is the adoption of some cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another.
  • Assimilation is completely giving up one’s original customs and traditions in favor of anew culture; it is more extreme than acculturation.
  • Syncretism is the blending of cultural traits from different sources. It can also refer to the synthesis of religious practices from two or more distinct traditions.
  • Multiculturalism refers to a society containing several ethnic or cultural groups.

Key Takeaways 1

  • Different locations have different cultural practices, influenced by physical geography and resources.
    • Views about cultural differences—cultural relativism and ethnocentrism—influence geographers as they study cultures.
    • Cultural landscapes reflect a particular culture’s imprint on a place.

Key Takeaways 2

  • Interactions spread cultural practices, such as language and religion.
    • The two main types of diffusion are relocation and expansion.
    • Religions may be universalizing or ethnic.

Key Takeaways 3

  • Aspects of cultures change or disappear over time.
    • Historical processes of diffusion, such as colonialism and imperialism, impact current culture.
    • Current processes of diffusion, such as urbanization and globalization, can impact the cultural landscape.

The Political Organization of Space

  • Political Geography

    • Independent states are the fundamental units of political geography. They may be composed of more than one nation and may include semiautonomous regions.
    • Nations are groups of people with a common political identity, but every nation does not have its own state.
    • A nation-state is a state whose population possesses a substantial degree of cultural homogeneity and unity. Nation-states are rare.

  • Forms of Governance

    • In a unitary state, the central government controls the entire country.
    • In a federal state, the central government shares authority with subdivisions.

  • Political Processes

    • Self-determination is the right of a people to govern themselves.
    • Colonialism involves the official government rule of one state over another, while imperialism describes a situation in which one country exerts indirect dominance.

  • Territoriality

    • Neocolonialism involves a country applying indirect influence over its former colony. This form of influence often takes an economic and cultural form.
    • A shatterbelt is a region of persistent political fragmentation due to devolution and centrifugal forces. The region is typically contested between major powers.
    • A choke point is a geographic feature that is strategically and economically vital; one military force can easily close it off, and forcing it open requires another military force.

Political Boundaries

  • Political Boundaries

    • The geographic location, size, and shape of a state’s borders are significant. Borders can have a lasting impact on cultural and environmental geography.
    • There are several types of political boundaries for states: relic, superimposed, subsequent, antecedent, consequent, and geometric.

  • Functions of Boundaries

    • Borders establish sovereignty, but they may be contested.
    • International agreements establish some borders, impacting how some domestic and international disputes are resolved.
    • United Nations agreements define sovereignty as it relates to the seas.

  • Electoral Boundaries

    • The political and ethnic composition of a voting district may impact who is elected.
    • Gerrymandering is purposely drawing district lines to favor one set of candidates over another. Not all states or systems allow for gerrymandering.

Sovereignty Issues

  • Unity and Division

    • Centripetal forces unite people and increase support for a state.
    • Centrifugal forces pull people apart and decrease support for a state.

  • Devolutionary Factors

    • A central government can delegate (devolve) legal authority to lower levels of political organization, such as a state or country.
    • Physical geography, social and ethnic conflicts, economic problems, and irredentism can lead to devolution.

  • Limits to Sovereignty

    • Both global projects to tackle transnational problems and improved communication have furthered supranationalism, which can impact state sovereignty.

Key Takeaways 1

  • Independent states, which may be unitary or federal, are the fundamental units of political geography.
    • Many types of political entities—such as nations and nation-states—are relevant in the study of political geography.
    • Historic and current processes have impacted political boundaries, which are sometimes contested.

Key Takeaways 2

  • Geographers identify various types of boundaries, which may or may not align with cultural divisions.

Key Takeaways 3

  • Many factors—including centripetal and centrifugal forces, the process of devolution, and supranational organizations—can pose challenges to the sovereignty of states.

Factors That Influence Agriculture: Resources and Culture

  • Intro to Agriculture

    • Subsistence agriculture involves farms growing crops and/or raising animals to meet the families’ needs, with little surplus.
    • Commercial agriculture involves farms producing products for sale.
    • Intensive cultivation involves a small piece of land with large labor or capital inputs to generate a large amount of produce; this system supports high population densities.
    • Extensive cultivation involves large expanses of land and smaller amounts of labor to generate a specific agricultural product; this system supports only a limited population.

  • The Global System of Agriculture & Agribusiness

    • Global agriculture is generally transitioning from extensive to intensive.
    • Horizontal integration is when the branches or companies of one corporation sell to different markets.
    • Vertical integration is when one corporation owns every step in a commodity chain.
    • Agribusinesses typically do monocropping of high-yield crops, which can be profitable but carries risks.
    • Bid-rent theory says that the closer to the central market, the higher the value of land.

  • Settlements and Surveying

    • The major rural survey methods are long lots, metes and bounds, township and range.

  • Von ThĂĽnen’s Model

    • Von ThĂĽnen’s model features concentric rings around a central city’s market. The cost of agricultural goods are carefully balanced to account for both distance (from a central market) and weight (which impacts transportation costs).

History of Agriculture

  • Origins and Diffusion

    • Even after agriculture became firmly established, most people still hunted and gathered to round out their diets.
    • The First Agricultural Revolution involved the domestication of plants and animals, which diffused from hearths.

  • Second Agricultural Revolution

    • The Second Agricultural Revolution involved farm mechanization, new techniques such as crop rotation, and transportation innovation.
    • Impacts included better diets, longer life expectancy, freeing up labor for factories, and the growth of urban areas.

  • The Green Revolution

    • It involved chemical fertilizers, pesticides, high-yield seeds, and hybridization.
    • Impacts included the prevention of mass starvation in an era of exponential population growth, the rise of globalized agribusiness, and the decline of family-owned farms.

  • Women in Agriculture

    • Women, expert gatherers in hunter-gatherer societies, may have invented agriculture.
    • Improved agricultural techniques shifted some female labor from farms to industry.

Agriculture Today

  • Consequences of Agriculture

    • Salinization is the buildup of salt in the soil due to land cultivation in arid climates.
    • Desertification is the process of once-fertile lands becoming deserts.
    • Slash-and-burn agriculture involves burning the physical landscape to create space and to add nutrients to the soil.

  • Challenges of Modern Agriculture

    • Sustainability and business practices are debated due to innovations in agriculture.
    • GMOs are genetically modified organisms, typically plants and animals.
    • Challenges to feeding the global population include adverse weather, food insecurity, and food deserts.

Key Takeaways 1

  • Agriculture may be subsistence or commercial, intensive or extensive.
    • Large-scale commercial agriculture has increased production and use of monocultures, and decreased the number of family farms.
    • Global agricultural supply chains, in which some countries rely on one primary export crop, have developed.
    • Von ThĂĽnen’s model has concentric rings and utilizes bid-rent theory.

Key Takeaways 2

  • Agriculture has undergone change over time due to diffusion and tech.

Key Takeaways 3

  • Debates about modern agriculture concern new innovations, food choice movements, lack of access to food, threats to production, and agriculture’s impacts.

Cities: Growth and Distribution

  • Impacts on Urbanization

    • Site is a place’s unique physical features.
    • Situation is a place’s context, or its relation to places around it.
    • Factors impacting urbanization include: technological change, migration, population growth, economic development, and government policies.

  • City Size and Distribution

    • The rank-size rule states that city populations are proportionate to their overall rank within a country.
    • A primate city is the most important urban area in a country, more than twice the population of any other city in that country.
    • Walter Christaller’s central-place theory explains the relationship between a city and its surrounding settlements; a large city provides goods and services and the surrounding settlements provide a labor supply and market.
    • The gravity model states that the greater the sphere of influence a city has, the greater its impact on other locations, regardless of their distance.

Cities: Models and World Cities

  • The Internal Structure of Cities

    • The bid-rent theory states that the closer to the business district, the higher the value of land.
    • The three main models of urban environments are the concentric-zone model (Burgess), sector model (Hoyt), and multiple-nuclei model (Ullman).
    • The galactic city model represents a post-industrial, car-centric city.
    • There are also models based on African, Latin American, and Southeast Asian cities.

  • Cities Across the World

    • A megalopolis is an area that links together several metropolitan areas to form one huge urban area.
    • A world (global) city is a city with high economic, cultural, and political influence that drives globalization, such as London or Tokyo.
    • A megacity is any city with over 10 million people.
    • A metacity is a heterogeneous, overlapping collection of cities and industrial hubs.

  • Suburbanization

    • Boomburbs are cities located around metropolitan areas that see massive growth.
    • Edge cities are large entertainment and shopping centers in the suburbs.
    • Exurbs are locations farther from the cities than the suburbs.

Urban Challenges

  • Urban Data & Infrastructure

    • Urban change can be studied by analyzing data, both quantitative (numbers-based) and qualitative (words-based).
    • Infrastructure is the structures and systems needed for a population to function; infrastructure impacts development, with effective infrastructure facilitating growth.
    • Rapid expansion, financial constraints, or gov’t policy decisions might lead to inadequate infrastructure, which discourages settlement of an area.

  • Challenges of Urban Changes

    • Redlining and blockbusting are historically associated with racial discrimination.
    • Squatter settlements are impoverished areas on city outskirts; occupants do not own or rent the land.
    • Deindustrialization and movement away from some urban areas has led to decline.
    • This creates disamenities, or reasons that people would not want to live in a location.
    • Efforts to improve urban areas include urban renewal and gentrification, which have both pros and cons.

  • Urban Sustainability

    • Sustainability is the responsible use of resources.
    • New types of urban design that aim to increase sustainability include: mixed land use, transportation-oriented development, New Urbanism, greenbelts, and brownfields.

Key Takeaways 1

  • Site and situation influence the origin, function, and growth of cities.
    • Cities can be analyzed using principles such as the rank-size rule, the gravity model, central place theory, and the bid-rent theory.

Key Takeaways 2

  • The three main city models are the concentric-zone, sector, and multiple-nuclei models.
    • Megacities and metacities are growing in less-developed countries; world cities drive globalization.

Key Takeaways 3

  • Cities face challenges related to housing, infrastructure, areas of decline, sustainability, and sprawl.
    • The merits of new urban design practices (such as gentrification) are debated.

Intro to Economic Geography

  • Economic Sectors

    • There are five economic sectors: primary (resource extraction), secondary (processing raw materials), tertiary (services), quaternary (knowledge), and quinary (management).

  • Locations of Manufacturing

    • Goods are transferred between two modes of transport at the break-of-bulk point.
    • The least cost theory states that a company will, when building an industrial plant, consider the location of both the raw materials and the market.
    • Heavier raw materials → factory closer to raw materials
    • Heavier finished product → factory closer to market

  • Measures of Development

    • Human Geography uses five measures of economic development: “HDI and the 4 Gs”
      • The Human Development Index (HDI) measures a country’s development based on life expectancy, education, and per capita income.
      • Gross Domestic Product (GDP); Gross National Product (GNP); and Gross National Income (GNI) measure social and economic development.
      • The Gender Inequality Index (GII) measures inequalities based on gender.

Economic Development: History and Theories

  • Industrial Revolution

    • The Industrial Revolution was a period of technological, economic, and social changes that began in England in the late 18th century.
    • Production shifted to factories, urbanization increased, and the need for raw materials and new markets fueled colonialism and imperialism.

  • Theories of Development

    • Rostow’s model describes five stages of economic development, but it is critiqued for its emphasis on European/American development and high consumption.
    • Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory holds that core countries are dominant capitalist countries that exploit peripheral countries for labor and raw materials. Semi-periphery countries are gaining in development, yet lack the political importance of the core.
    • Dependency Theory argues that developed countries keep developing countries in a state of dependency in order to take advantage of their cheap labor and goods.
    • Commodity Dependence Theory states that some countries, especially periphery ones, become dependent on exporting a particular resource (such as oil) to core countries.

The World Economy

  • Reasons for Trade & Free or Protected Trade?

    • Government policies can influence economic development.
    • Complementarity occurs when two locations are well-suited for trading with each other to meet both locations’ needs.
    • Comparative advantage is being able to produce a specific good at a lower relative opportunity cost than others can.
    • Neoliberal policies advocate free trade and minimal gov’t oversight of the economy.

  • Global Economic Trends

    • Recent trends in global economic interdependence include: outsourcing, just-in-time delivery practices, economies of scale, high tech industries, post-Fordist methods of production, multiplier effects, growth poles, and agglomeration.
    • New manufacturing zones in non-core countries include: free-trade zones, special economic zones (SEZs), and export-processing zones.

Economic Development: Issues and Trends

  • Women, Inequality, and Sustainable Development
    • The roles of women change as countries develop economically. New wage jobs and microloans may provide more financial independence.
    • Inequalities tend to be greatest in developing countries, although even in highly developed countries, women still lack full equity in wages and job opportunities.
    • Sustainable development involves meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
    • Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 global goals developed by the UN that measure progress in development.

Key Takeaways 1

  • The five economic sectors correspond with different levels of development. Development is measured using various social & economic metrics (e.g., GDP).

Key Takeaways 2

  • Industrialization spurred development. Rostow’s stages, the World System Theory, and dependency theory attempt to explain uneven development throughout the world.

Key Takeaways 3

  • The world economy is increasingly interconnected. World trade has been impacted by neoliberal policies, gov’t actions, international agencies and trade relationships, and the trend of outsourcing of jobs from core countries.

Key Takeaways 4

  • Equity for women in the workforce and sustainable development are current issues related to development.