AP Human Geography - Population, Migration, Culture, and Political Geography Review Notes

Dependency Ratios

  • Definition: Percentage of the population too old or too young to work that needs services.
  • Young dependency ratio:
    • Stage 2 of the Demographic Transition Model.
    • Require education and jobs.
  • Elderly dependency ratio:
    • Stages 4 and 5.
    • Require health and retirement income, which can be very expensive, especially in the last years of life.
  • Pronatalist policies: Aim to increase the number of workers by encouraging births, which can inform public policy.

Malthus's Theory

  • Population grows exponentially, food grows arithmetically.
  • Malthus predicted we would run out of food.
  • He was wrong because he did not foresee modern farming techniques with the Second Agricultural Revolution.
  • His theory can be relevant to some countries in Africa that are in danger of exceeding their carrying capacity (CC).
  • Neo-Malthusians: Argue resources are running out.
  • Population growth is slowing worldwide, even in Stage 2 countries.

Migration

  • Always consider push and pull factors.
  • Ravenstein's Laws of Migration:
    • Main reason people move: Jobs (economic factors).
    • Three categories of push and pull factors:
      • Economic: Most common, usually voluntary.
      • Cultural, political, social: Often linked, can create refugees.
      • Environmental: Can be both forced and voluntary.
    • Most migrants move short distances.
    • Long-distance migrants usually move to urban areas for jobs.
    • People from rural areas are more likely to migrate to urban areas.
    • Young men are historically more likely to migrate, but this is changing.
    • There's always a counter-flow of people returning home.

Types of Migration

  • Transnational/International: Moving from country to country.
  • Internal: Moving within a country.
  • Interregional: Moving from region to region.
  • Intraregional: Moving within the same region.
  • Step Migration:
    • Long-distance migration that occurs in stages.
    • At each step, migrants may encounter:
      • Intervening obstacles (e.g., being stopped at a border).
      • Opportunities.
    • Historically, obstacles were physical geography, but now they are often related to border controls and regulations.
  • Chain Migration:
    • One form: Migrants move somewhere with the goal of bringing their families later.
    • Another form: Creation of ethnic neighborhoods, making it easier to fit in and acculturate; common worldwide with various nationalities.
  • America's Quota Laws:
    • Historically allowed chain migration.
    • Preference given to people with advanced degrees (doctors, engineers), which can cause brain drain in their home countries.
    • Remittances: Money sent back home by migrants to support their families.
    • Countries may encourage emigration to reduce unemployment and benefit from remittances.
  • Seasonal Migration:
    • Transhumance: Moving livestock up and down mountains.
  • Rural to Urban:
    • Most common in LDCs (Less Developed Countries).
    • In MDCs (More Developed Countries), people mainly live in suburbs.
  • Refugees:
    • Fleeing due to social, cultural, or economic push factors (minority status, lack of rights, civil war).
  • Asylum Seekers:
    • Do not want to return to their home country due to fear of punishment.
  • Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs):
    • Refugees who stay within their country.
  • Environmental Refugees:
    • Forced to move due to environmental disasters.

Consequences of Migration

  • Socioeconomic: Fears of job displacement and cultural differences are common everywhere.
  • Cultural: Impacts on cultural landscapes.
  • Environmental: Construction of walls can harm the environment.
  • Political: Immigration is often a contentious political issue.

Culture

  • Folk vs. Pop Culture:
    • Folk/Indigenous culture: Native culture of an area.
    • Pop culture: Appeals to people all over the world.
  • Push and Pull Factors as Sides of the Same Coin:
    • Job loss (push) leading to seeking jobs elsewhere (pull).
    • Lack of rights (push) leading to moving where rights exist (pull).
    • Forced migration: E.g., Trail of Tears.
  • Stage 2 countries produce the most people leaving, while Stages 4 and 5 need workers.
  • Culture traits, cultural landscape.
  • Taboo: Something restricted.
  • Non-material culture: Religion.
  • Material culture.
  • Pop culture threatens indigenous cultures.
  • Globalization is pop culture, spread through contagious diffusion.
  • Folk culture is spread through relocation diffusion.
  • Culture hearth: Where a culture begins.
  • Race is physical characteristics; ethnicity is cultural characteristics.

Cultural Concepts

  • Cultural Relativism: Judging a culture by its own standards.
  • Ethnocentrism: Judging a culture by your own culture's standards.
  • Assimilation: Adopting another culture, either voluntarily or forced.
  • Acculturation: Adopting certain traits of another culture while maintaining your own.
  • Syncretism: Two cultures coming together to create a new culture trait.
  • Cultural Convergence: Cultures becoming more alike.
  • Cultural Divergence: Cultures becoming less alike.
  • Cultural Hearth: Where a culture originates.
  • Isogloss: A language boundary.

Place

  • Unique characteristics that distinguish one place from another.
  • Physical place: Climate, landscape, site characteristics.
  • Human place: Human culture differences.
  • Sense of place: Personal identity related to a place.
  • Placemaking: Enhancing the sense of place.
  • Placelessness: Lack of unique characteristics.
  • Sequent Occupancy:
    • Different cultures have occupied the same land, leaving their mark.
    • Example: Jerusalem, with Christian churches, Jewish Western Wall, and Islamic Dome of the Rock.
    • European cities filled with symbolic layers of history.

Cultural Landscape

  • Visible imprint of culture on the environment.
  • Individual parts are culture traits.

Language

  • Languages divided into families, branches, and groups.
  • Largest language family: Indo-European.
    • Branches: Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian.
    • Germanic includes English, Dutch, German.
    • Romance includes Spanish, French, Italian.
    • Balto-Slavic includes Russian, Polish, Ukrainian.
    • Indo-Iranian includes Hindi, Urdu, Persian.
  • Second largest language family: Sino-Tibetan (dominated by Mandarin).
  • India is multilingual with the Dravidian language family in Southern India.
  • Afro-Asiatic includes Arabic.
  • Tracing English: Indo-European -> Germanic -> West Germanic.

Diffusion

  • Relocation Diffusion: Physical movement of people (e.g., European colonialism).
  • Expansion Diffusion:
    • Contagious Diffusion: Nearby places affected first (e.g., pop culture).
    • Hierarchical Diffusion: Spreads from different levels (upper class to lower class or vice versa).
    • Stimulus Diffusion:
      • The idea spreads, but changes to fit the culture (e.g., McDonald's in India offers no beef).
      • Celebrity spokespeople.

Lingua Franca

  • A common language spoken by those who do not speak the same native language.
  • English is a lingua franca for:
    • Economic power.
    • Cultural power.
    • Entertainment.
    • Education.
    • Air traffic control.
  • Other lingua francas: Swahili, Arabic, French, Spanish.
  • Toponyms: Place names that reflect culture.
  • Isogloss: A word usage boundary (e.g., "soda" vs. "pop").
  • Multilingual: Speaking many languages.
    • Nigeria (400 languages).
    • India (15 official languages).
    • Belgium (Flemings and Walloons).
  • Endangered Languages:
    • Technology can help preserve them.
  • Revival Languages:
    • Languages being brought back.
    • Irish Gaelic in Ireland.
    • Welsh in the United Kingdom.
  • Creolization: When a native language connectes to Europeans

Religion

  • Universalizing Religions:
    • Christianity, Islam, Buddhism.
    • Christianity spread worldwide through European colonialism.
    • Catholicism mainly in Southern Europe and Latin America.
    • Eastern Orthodox in Eastern Europe.
    • Islam spread through trade and conquest.
    • Most Muslims are in Indonesia; Sunni is the dominant branch, Shia in Iran.
    • Buddhism began in India and spread to Southeast Asia.
  • Ethnic Religions:
    • Hinduism (dominant in India).
    • Polytheistic, but also considered monotheistic.
  • Monotheistic Religions:
    • Judaism, Christianity, Islam (all believe in the same God).
  • Ethnic religions diffuse through relocation diffusion; people generally do not convert.
  • Religious Travelers: Pilgrims.
  • Religion as a source of conflict (e.g., Jerusalem).
  • Religious influence on the cultural landscape.

Recognizing Religious Structures

  • Mosque: Prayer towers (minarets).
  • Pagoda: Buddhism.
  • Eastern Orthodox: Crosses.
  • Indian Temple: Can be harder to classify.

Political Geography

  • State: A synonym for country with:
    • A sovereign government.
    • A population.
    • Territory (land).
    • A working economy.
  • Nation: A group of people who share political characteristics, or a national identity.
  • Nation-State: A country where almost everyone shares the same culture.
  • Self-determination: The right of a nation to govern itself.
  • Autonomy: Control over one's own affairs.
  • Stateless Nation: A nation without its own state (e.g., Kurds, Palestinians, Basques).
  • Nation-state examples: Japan, Iceland, Norway, Sweden.
  • Multiethnic States: Countries with many ethnicities (e.g., Africa).
  • Multinational States: States with distinct nationalities that have some control over themselves (e.g., United Kingdom).
  • Multi-State Nation: A nation of people that are divided by more than one state (e.g., Korea).
  • Irrendentism: The reunification of divided populations

Boundaries

  • Superimposed Boundaries:

    • Boundaries placed on the cultural landscape by an outside power without regard for existing cultural landscape.
    • Common in Africa, drawn by Europeans. This creates conflicts, civil wars, multiethnic states, and multi-state nations.

  • Subsequent Boundaries:

    • Adapted to cultural boundaries; drawn by cultures rather than by the colonializers.

  • Delimit: Draw boundaries on a map.

  • Demarcate: Put boundaries on the surface of the Earth.

  • Territoriality: The concept of being fiercely protective of one's land.

Types of Boundaries

  • Physical: Rivers, lakes, mountains.
  • Cultural: Language, religion.
  • Geometric: Straight lines.
  • Antecedent: Drawn before the cultural landscape developed.
  • Religious: Separates northern Ireland from Ireland becasue of Protestants/Catholic differences.
  • Subsequent: Drawn after the cultural landscape develops.

Governments

  • Federal Government:
    • Shares power with subnational units.
    • Works well for large countries and multiethnic countries.
    • United States.
  • Unitary Government:
    • Central government has most or all of the power.
    • Works well for small countries and nation-states.
    • China.
  • Autonomous/Semiautonomous Regions:
    • Areas given power but not full sovereignty.
    • Native American reservations, Nunavut (Canada).

Maritime Boundaries

  • Territorial Waters: 12 nautical miles (most control).
  • Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ): 200 nautical miles.
  • Median Line Principle: If countries are less than 400 miles apart, they split the difference.

Devolution

  • When a country begins to share power to local governments, which can lead to breaking apart (balkanization).
  • Centripetal Forces: Unify a country (e.g., middle class, sports teams, pledge of allegiance).
  • Centrifugal Forces: Divide a country (e.g., multiethnic differences, wealth inequality).
  • Shatter Belts: Areas of political instability caused by outside interference (e.g., Korea, Vietnam, Eastern Europe).
  • Separatist Movements: Groups that want to break away from a country (devolutionary forces).

Electoral Geography

  • Redistricting: Redrawing electoral districts every ten years after the census.
  • Reapportionment: Adjusting the number of representatives each state has based on population.
  • Gerrymandering:
    • Redrawing districts to benefit one party.
    • Packing: Concentrating the minority group into one district.
    • Cracking: Spreading the minority group across many districts.
  • Choke Points: Strategic narrow bodies of water; if blocked, they can affect world trade.
  • Terrorism: Attacking civilians.