World Geography Midterm Notes

  1. Define population density and explain the causes/situations of why certain areas have a higher density than other areas.

More sparsely populated areas, such as farmland, have fewer people living in a single

square kilometer than more densely populated areas,

such as cities. 

  1. What is El Nino and how does it affect different parts of the world?

It influences weather and storm patterns in different parts of the world.

  1. What is human environment interaction and give two examples.

Examples of human-environment interaction include deforestation, energy resources, water use, waste, pollution, and urban expansion.

  1. Explain the difference between push and pull factors and give an example of each.

Push factors incorporate reasons people want to leave a region, while pull factors incorporate reasons people want to move into a certain region.

  1. What are some of the differences between developing and developed countries?

Developed countries are industrialized, have high standards of living, and have strong economic growth. Developing countries are agrarian (or at least not industrialized), have lower standards of living, and have a very weak economy with slow or nonexistent growth.

  1. Define population pyramids and explain what type of information you can gather from reading one.

A population pyramid is a graph that shows the age-sex distribution of a given population.

  1. Be able to explain the difference between population pyramids.  Is it showing rapid, slow or negative growth?

A country with rapid growth will have a wide base and narrow top. A country with slow growth will have almost equal numbers from top to bottom. A country with negative growth will have fewer at the bottom and top, and most of the population in the middle.

  1. What type of areas have high population density and low population density?  Give two examples of each.

More sparsely populated areas, such as farmland, have fewer people living in a single square kilometer than more densely populated areas, such as cities. 

  1. Define globalization.

The increasing interconnectedness and interdependence of the many peoples of the world who all live and work on one large planet.

  1. Define place and the two characteristics that help define it.

As a result, place has numerous definitions, from the simple “a space or location with meaning.

  1. What are the 5 major religions of the world and where are they most well known?

Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.

  1. Why are the temperatures of an area different during certain seasons? Example - January/June

Weather changes from day to day and over the seasons. Seasons result from variations in solar insolation resulting from the tilt of the Earth's rotation axis. 

  1.  What are the 5 themes of geography?

To help you understand how geographers think about the world, consider geography's five themes—location, place, region, movement, and human-environment interaction.

  1. Name the three types of regions and explain/give an example of each.

Three types of regions are formal, vernacular, and functional. Formal regions are uniform. 

  1. Name the different types of governments and give an example of each.

Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, theocracy, and tyranny.

  1. On which continent is catholicism the dominant religion?

With 39% of the population identifying as Catholic, Latin America is the region with the most Catholics. 

  1. What's the difference between cultural convergence and cultural divergence?

Cultural convergence is when two cultures combined together, while cultural divergence is the differences between two cultures.

  1. Define cultural diffusion:

Cultural diffusion refers to the spreading or merging of different cultural ideas.

  1. What is an isthmus?

An isthmus is a land connection between two bigger landmasses, while a peninsula is rather a land protrusion that is connected to a bigger landmass on one side only and surrounded by water on all other sides.

  1. Explain plate tectonics.

The theory of plate tectonics explains processes in the geosphere that are fueled by Earth's internal heat that have operated over billions of years.

  1. What is gps and gis?

Global Positioning Systems or GPS are used to find the exact location of things. Geographic Information Systems or GIS are used to record information on to maps.

  1. What was the physical process to create the following landforms? Plains, mountains and islands.

The movement of tectonic plates has produced many of Earth's landforms. Volcanoes, islands, and mountains often result from the separation or collision of Earth's plates.