AP Human Geography Units 3, 4, and 5

Unit 3: Culture

  • This unit emphasizes cultural relativism over ethnocentrism.
    • Cultural Relativism: Viewing a culture through its own perspective without imposing external cultural standards.
    • Ethnocentrism: Judging another culture based on one's own cultural norms and standards.
  • Culture encompasses:
    • Shared practices, beliefs, attitudes, and customs of a group.
    • Technologies and food.
    • Observed patterns in the cultural landscape, including land use, agricultural practices, religious and linguistic characteristics, and architectural styles.
  • Understanding culture is crucial for:
    • Understanding gender roles and opportunities.
    • Understanding food types and diets.
    • Understanding available goods and services.
  • Cultural centripetal (uniting) and centrifugal (dividing) forces shape a society's sense of place and cultural identity.
  • Migration leads to cultural diffusion, with different types:
    • Relocation Diffusion: Movement of a cultural trait as people migrate, causing the trait to diminish in the original location.
    • Expansion Diffusion: Increase in the number of people adopting a cultural trait.
      • Hierarchical Diffusion: Spreads through structured systems, often top-down.
      • Contagious Diffusion: Spreads in all directions without barriers.
      • Stimulus Diffusion: Trait adapts to the cultural traits of the new area.
  • Diffusion has historically occurred through:
    • Colonialism and imperialism, spreading languages like English (lingua franca).
    • Religion: Christianity and Islam diffused globally, becoming universalizing religions.
  • Modern diffusion happens through:
    • Urbanization, globalization, and the internet.
    • Advancements in transportation and communication.
    • Space-time compression, reducing the impact of distance decay.
  • Cultural changes and reactions:
    • Resistance to new cultural traits.
    • Acculturation, assimilation, syncretism, and multiculturalism as cultures merge and adapt.
    • Isolation of cultures (folk and indigenous) to protect their unique identities.
  • Religion:
    • Universalizing Religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Sikhism which seek to convert followers and diffuse widely.
    • Ethnic Religions: Judaism and Hinduism which focus on preserving their identity.
    • Focus on their impact on the cultural landscape, hearth, diffusion, and major beliefs.
  • Language:
    • Focus on language families, their origin, and diffusion.
    • Dialect variations across regions.
    • Impact of language on the cultural landscape.

Unit 4: Political Geography

  • Scale changes frequently in this unit, from local issues (gerrymandering) to international organizations (United Nations).

  • Key Definitions:

    • Nation: Group of people with shared history, cultural identity, and self-determination.
    • State: Entity with a permanent population, sovereign government, and recognition by other states.
    • Nation-State: A state made up of one nation (homogeneous).
    • Multinational State: State with multiple nations coexisting peacefully.
    • Multi-State Nation: Nation existing across multiple states (e.g., Korean nation in North and South Korea).
    • Stateless Nation: Nation without its own state (e.g., Kurdish nation).
    • Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous Regions

  • Self-determination: Nation's right to govern itself without external interference to protect its cultural identity.

  • Colonialism and imperialism influence political boundaries, diffusion, and territoriality.

  • Shatterbelt Regions: Areas caught between external fighting powers.

  • Neocolonialism: Controlling a country through economic or political influence rather than direct occupation.

  • Political Boundaries:

    • Relic Boundaries: No longer exist but still impact the landscape (e.g., Berlin Wall).
    • Antecedent Boundaries: Existed before human settlement.
    • Subsequent Boundaries: Based on ethnic groups and cultures.
    • Consequent Boundaries: Divide cultural groups and accommodate differences.
    • Superimposed Boundaries: Created by a foreign state (e.g., African countries).
    • Geometric Boundaries: Straight lines along parallels of latitude.

  • Law of the Sea: Defines maritime boundaries and zones.

    • Territorial Waters: 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.
    • International Waters: Beyond the EEZ.

  • Gerrymandering: Redistricting voting districts for political advantage.

  • Unitary vs. Federal States

    • Unitary State: Power concentrated at the federal/national level.
    • Federal State: Power shared between national and regional governments.

  • Centripetal vs. Centrifugal Forces

    • Centrifugal Forces: Push a state apart (e.g., terrorism, irredentism).
    • Centripetal Forces: Unite a country (prevent devolution).
    • Devolution: Transfer of power from national to regional government.

  • State Sovereignty

    • Challenged by devolution, technology, foreign interference, and supranational organizations.
    • Supranational Organizations: (e.g., EU, NATO, UN) States give up some sovereign control.
    • Benefits: Solving global issues, trade agreements, military alliances.

Unit 5: Agriculture

  • Extensive vs. Intensive Agricultural Practices

    • Intensive Agricultural Practices: Near population centers, maximizing production with labor and capital.
      • Plantation farming (less developed countries).
      • Mixed crop and livestock (developed countries).
      • Market gardening (longer growing seasons).
    • Extensive Agricultural Practices: Farther from population centers, using more land.
      • Shifting Cultivation (developing countries, tropical regions).
      • Nomadic Herding (dry, arid climates).
      • Ranching (large land for grazing).

  • Commercial vs. Subsistence Agriculture

    • Subsistence Agriculture: Feeding family/community, not for profit.
    • Commercial Agriculture: Focused on profit, larger scale, more technology.

  • Settlement Patterns

    • Clustered Settlements: Higher population density, homes close.
    • Dispersed Settlements: Lower population density, homes spaced out.
    • Linear Settlement Patterns: Along rivers, roads, or trains.

  • Survey Methods

    • Meets and Bounds: Short distances, based on geographic features.
    • Long Lots: Narrow parcels with transportation access.
    • Township and Range: Grid system using longitude and latitude.

  • Agricultural Hearths

    • Fertile Crescent, Indus Valley River: Origins of crops and animals and their diffusion.
    • Historical Impact: Columbian Exchange led to diffusion of agricultural practices and products.

  • Agricultural Revolutions

    • First Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic Revolution): Sedentary agriculture.
    • Second Agricultural Revolution (Industrial Revolution): Transformation in food production with new technologies increase food output (seed drill), enclosure movement, globalized economy, population boom.
    • Green Revolution: GMOs, hybrid plants, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, increased crop yields.

  • New Practices

    • Monocropping: Growing the same crop each year to increase production.
    • Monoculture: Growing one type of crop at a time (rotating crops)

  • Economy of Scale

    • New technology allows farmers to achieve an economy of scale.

  • Value-Added Specialty Crops

    • Crops that gain value as production occurs (wheat to flour).

  • Debates and Movements

    • Genetically modified food, chemical fertilizers, environmental and health impacts.
    • Organic Farming: Removing chemical fertilizers and non practices.
    • Local Food Movements, Free Trade Movements, Urban Farming, Community Supported Agriculture: Counter ethical, health, and environmental concerns.

  • Role of Women in Agriculture

    • In developing countries, women are a large percentage of subsistence farmers, part of informal economy, paid lower wages.
      As countries develop, women gain more roles, leading towards equality.

  • Bid Rent Theory

    • Relationship between land prices and urban areas.
    • Land prices decrease farther from urban areas allow for extensive practices.

  • Von Thunen's Model

    • Spatial layout of society
    • Market at the Center.
    • Dairy and horticulture (first ring).
    • Forest (second ring).
    • Grain and field crops (third ring).
    • Livestock (fourth ring).

  • Site and Situation Factors

    • Unit six starts out with site and situation factors.
      (9=3)(\sqrt{9} = 3)