AP Human Geography Review Flashcards

Unit 1: Maps and Spatial Data

Key concepts include thematic and reference maps, understanding map projections and their distortions (shape, area, distance, direction). GIS layers data to reveal spatial relationships, using qualitative and quantitative research, environmental determinism versus possibilism, and understanding scale and scale of analysis. Types of regions: functional/nodal, perceptual/vernacular, and formal/uniform.

Unit 2: Population and Migration

Focuses on population distribution and density (arithmetic, physiological, agricultural). Key vocabulary includes CBR, CDR, NIR, doubling time, and dependency ratios. Understanding population pyramids and the Demographic Transition Model is crucial. Malthusian theory and push/pull factors of migration (economic reasons are most common), forced vs. voluntary migration. Migration leads to diffusion, acculturation, assimilation, or cultural resistance.

Unit 3: Culture

Promotes cultural relativism over ethnocentrism. Culture includes shared practices, beliefs, and landscapes. Diffusion can occur through relocation or expansion (hierarchical, contagious, stimulus). Colonialism, imperialism, urbanization, and globalization influence diffusion. Religions are categorized as universalizing or ethnic. Focus on language families, their origins, diffusion, and regional dialects.

Unit 4: Political Geography

Distinguishes between nation and state, including nation-states, multinational states, multistate nations, and stateless nations. Self-determination and the impacts of colonialism and neocolonialism are important. Types of political boundaries: relic, antecedent, subsequent, consequent, superimposed, and geometric. Includes law of the sea, gerrymandering, unitary vs. federal states, centripetal and centrifugal forces, devolution, state sovereignty challenges due to technology, and supranational organizations.

Unit 5: Agriculture

Covers extensive vs. intensive agricultural practices (plantation farming, mixed crop/livestock, market gardening). Settlement patterns (clustered, dispersed, linear) and survey methods (meets and bounds, long lots, township and range). Agricultural hearths, Columbian Exchange, agricultural revolutions (Neolithic, Second, Green). Modern practices like monocropping, monoculture, economies of scale, and the rise of organic farming. The Bid Rent Theory explains land prices relative to urban areas, and Von Thunen's model describes spatial layout of agricultural activities.

Unit 6: Urbanization

Explores the impact of site and situation factors on settlements. Diffusion in world cities, the gravity model, and Christaller's central place theory. Models include Burgess Concentric Zone, Hoyt Sector, Harris-Ullman Multiple Nuclei, Galactic/Peripheral, Latin American city, Sub-Saharan African city, and Southeast Asian city models. Also addresses density gradients, infrastructure, sustainable cities, urban sprawl, and ethical issues like redlining and gentrification.

Unit 7: Economic Development

Focuses on globalization. Understanding formal and informal economies, primary/secondary/tertiary/quaternary/quinary sectors. International division of labor, offshoring, manufacturing zones, post-Fordist production, neoliberal policies, and trade agreements. Growth indicators like GDP, GNP, GNI, gender inequality index, and human development index. Relevant models/theories include Rostow's stages of economic growth and Wallerstein's world system theory.