Untitled Flashcards Set

🧭 Unit 4: Political Patterns and Processes

📌 Essential Terms & Concepts

• State: An area organized into a political unit with a permanent population, defined territory, and a government with sovereignty over its domestic and international affairs.

• Nation: A group of people with shared cultural characteristics, such as language, religion, and ethnicity.

• Nation-State: A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular nation.

• Multinational State: A state that contains more than one nation within its borders.

• Stateless Nation: A nation that does not have a territory to call its own.

• Sovereignty: The authority of a state to govern itself without external interference.

• Nationalism: A strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one's nation.Knowt

• Supranationalism: The association of three or more states for mutual benefit and to achieve shared objectives.

• Enclave: A territory entirely surrounded by another state but not part of it.

• Exclave: A portion of a state geographically separated from the main part by surrounding alien territory.

• Types of Boundaries:

  • Antecedent: Established before the cultural landscape developed.

  • Subsequent: Developed contemporaneously with the evolution of the cultural landscape.

  • Superimposed: Imposed by external powers without regard to existing cultural patterns.

  • Relic: No longer functional but still visible on the landscape.

• Gerrymandering: Manipulating electoral district boundaries to favor a particular political party or group.

• Unitary State: A state governed as a single entity with centralized decision-making authority.

• Federal State: A state with a political system that allocates power between a central government and subnational units.

• Devolution: The transfer of power from a central government to subnational authorities.

🏙 Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land Use

📌 Key Models & Concepts

• Urban Models:

  • Concentric Zone Model: Describes urban land use in concentric rings emanating from the central business district (CBD).

  • Sector Model: Proposes that cities develop in sectors or wedges along transportation routes.

  • Multiple Nuclei Model: Suggests that cities have multiple centers (nuclei) that serve as focal points for different activities.

• Urban Hierarchy:

  • Primate City: The largest city in a country, disproportionately larger than any others.

  • Rank-Size Rule: The nth largest city is 1/n the size of the largest city.

• Types of Cities:

  • Megacity: A city with a population over 10 million.

  • World City: A city that serves as a major center for finance, trade, and culture.

  • Gateway City: Serves as an entry point to a country or region.

  • Entrepôt: A port city where goods are imported, stored, and transshipped.

  • Fall-Line City: Located at the point where a river transitions from navigable to non-navigable.

  • Colonial City: Established by colonizing powers, often with distinct urban layouts.

• Urban Challenges:

  • Urban Sprawl: The uncontrolled expansion of urban areas.

  • Gentrification: The process of renovating deteriorated urban neighborhoods by means of the influx of more affluent residents.

  • Food Deserts: Areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food.

  • Traffic Congestion: Overcrowding of roadways leading to slower speeds and longer trip times.

🌐 Diffusion Patterns

📌 Types of Diffusion

• Expansion Diffusion: The spread of a feature from one place to another in a snowballing process.

  • Contagious Diffusion: Rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population.

  • Hierarchical Diffusion: Spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority to other persons or places.

  • Stimulus Diffusion: Spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected.

• Relocation Diffusion: The spread of an idea through physical movement of people from one place to another.

📊 Measures of Development

📌 Key Indicators

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Total value of goods and services produced within a country.

• Gross National Income (GNI): GDP plus net income from abroad.

• Per Capita Measures:

  • GDP per capita: GDP divided by the total population.

  • GNI per capita: GNI divided by the total population.

• Human Development Index (HDI): Composite index measuring average achievement in key dimensions of human development: health, education, and standard of living.

• Gini Coefficient: Measures income inequality within a population, ranging from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality).

🌍 Unit 1: Thinking Geographically

• Latitude vs. Longitude: Latitude = horizontal (Equator), Longitude = vertical (Prime Meridian).

• GIS (Geographic Information Systems): Layers map data to show spatial patterns.

• Thematic Maps: Maps that show a theme (e.g., choropleth, dot, isoline, cartogram).

👶 Unit 2: Population & Migration

• Population Pyramids: Graphs showing age and sex structure of a population.

• Demographic Transition Model (DTM): 5 stages of population change (birth/death rates).

• Epidemiological Transition Model: Matches DTM stages with common diseases.

• Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration: Patterns like short-distance, rural-to-urban, step migration.

• Zelinsky’s Migration Transition: Migration types change with DTM stage.

• Malthusian Theory: Population grows faster than food (proved wrong due to tech).

• Boserup’s Theory: Opposite of Malthus—food production rises with population.

🗣 Unit 3: Cultural Patterns & Processes

• S-Curve of Innovation: How quickly ideas/products are adopted (slow → fast → plateau).

• Language Tree: Shows language families (e.g., Indo-European).

• Acculturation/Assimilation/Syncretism: Processes of cultural change or blending.

🌎 Unit 4: Political Organization

• Organic Theory (Ratzel): States must grow to survive, like organisms.

• Heartland Theory (Mackinder): Control of Eastern Europe → control of the world.

• Rimland Theory (Spykman): Power is in controlling coastal Eurasia (UK, India, China).

• Domino Theory: If one country falls to communism, neighbors will too.

• Core-Periphery Model: Core = wealth and power; Periphery = labor/resources.

🌾 Unit 5: Agriculture

• Von Thünen Model: Explains agricultural land use in rings around a market.

• Boserup’s Theory (again relevant here): Population drives agricultural innovation.

🏭 Unit 6: Industrialization & Development

• Rostow’s Stages of Growth: 5-stage model of economic development.

• Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory: Core, Semi-Periphery, Periphery interaction.

• Dependency Theory: Former colonies depend on core countries economically.

• Weber’s Least Cost Theory: Industries locate based on transport, labor, agglomeration.

🏙 Unit 7: Cities & Urban Land Use

• Central Place Theory (Christaller): Explains spatial hierarchy of settlements.

• Burgess Concentric Zone Model: Urban rings; wealth increases outward.

• Hoyt Sector Model: Urban growth in sectors, often along transport routes.

• Harris & Ullman Multiple Nuclei Model: Cities grow with multiple centers.

• Borchert’s Epochs of Urban Growth: 5 phases based on transportation tech.

• Zipf’s Rank-Size Rule: nth city = 1/n population of the largest.

• Bid-Rent Theory: Land price declines with distance from city center.

• Gravity Model: Larger/closer places attract more interaction.