AP Human Geo - The Complete Review Notes

Unit 1: Maps and Spatial Concepts

• Thematic maps, reference maps, and map projections are essential for reading and analyzing patterns at different scales and interpreting data.
• Map Projections: Each map projection struggles with distortion in shape, area, distance, or direction. The Mercator map, for instance, preserves direction but distorts other aspects.
• GIS (Geographic Information Systems): Layer data on maps to reveal spatial relationships.
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research:
  • Quantitative research uses census data in number form.
  • Qualitative research explores attitudes, beliefs, and feelings, providing insights into people's thoughts.
• Spatial Concepts and Technology: Advancements in communication have decreased distance decay, increasing global interconnectedness.
• Sense of Place and Cultural Landscape: Patterns and space between areas create unique cultural identities and landscapes.
• Environmental Sustainability:
  • Environmental determinism posits that the environment restricts society and culture.
  • Environmental possibilism suggests society can shape and modify the environment.
• Scale of analysis: refers to how data is organized (e.g., national vs. local).
• Scale: refers to the extent of the Earth's surface being viewed. A small scale map (e.g., world map) shows a large area with few details, while a large scale map (e.g., county map) shows a small area with many details.
• Different Types of Regions:
  • Functional or nodal regions are organized around a node, often related to economic activities, travel, or communication (e.g., an airport).
  • Perceptual or vernacular regions exist based on people's beliefs, feelings, or attitudes (e.g., The Middle East).
  • Formal or uniform regions have common attributes, defined by economic, social, political, or environmental characteristics (e.g., a state's boundaries).

Unit 2: Population and Migration

• Population Distribution: People live in areas based on opportunities, considering economic, social, political, and environmental factors.

• Larger urban areas offer more economic and social opportunities, attracting migrants, while smaller rural settlements offer a quieter lifestyle but fewer opportunities.

• Population Density:

  • Arithmetic density: Total population divided by total land area.
  • Physiological density: Total population divided by arable land, indicating the number of people to feed.
  • Agricultural density: Number of farmers divided by arable land, showing agricultural efficiency.

• Important Vocabulary:

  • CBR (Crude Birth Rate).
  • CDR (Crude Death Rate).
  • NIR (Natural Increase Rate).
  • Growth rate.
  • Doubling time.
  • Dependency ratios.

• Population Pyramids:

  • Large base: early stage in the Demographic Transition Model.
  • Top heavy: later stage, potential issues with the dependency ratio.

• Demographic Transition Model:

  • Stage 1: Low growth, high CBR and CDR cancel each other out.
  • Stage 2: Industrial/Medical Revolution, deaths fall, births remain high, population boom.
  • Stage 3: Urbanization, social and economic opportunities, births decrease, moderate growth.
  • Stage 4: Women's opportunities, zero population growth (ZPG), births and deaths match at a lower rate.
  • Stage 5: Deaths rise above births, population decrease.

• Epidemiologic Transition Model: Follows the demographic model, looking at causes of death in each stage.

• Pro Natalism vs. Anti Natalism:

  • Pro natalism: policies to increase population growth.
  • Antinatalism: policies to restrict population growth.

• Malthus and Neo-Malthusians:

  • Malthus: population grows exponentially, food production arithmetically, leading to a Malthusian catastrophe.
  • Neo-Malthusians: Malthus was right but limited in scope; population will exceed Earth's carrying capacity, leading to a catastrophe, considering all resources.

• Migration:

  • Pull factors: attract people to an area.
  • Push factors: make people leave an area. Primarily for political, economic, social, or environmental reasons, with economics being the top reason.

• Forced Migration: migrants life is pot in danger

• Voluntary migration: migrants choose to migrate on their own accord without fear of persecution or death.

• Ravenstein's Laws: Counter migration occurs; migration creates connections and influences between places, leading to diffusion, acculturation, assimilation, or cultural resistance.

Unit 3: Culture

• Cultural Relativism vs. Ethnocentrism:
  • Cultural relativism: viewing a culture through its own perspective without imposing one's own cultural standards.
  • Ethnocentrism: judging another culture based on one's own social norms and cultural standards.
• Culture: Group's shared practices, beliefs, attitudes, customs, technologies, and food, observable in the cultural landscape.
• Cultural Landscape: Comprises different land use patterns, agricultural practices, religious and linguistic characteristics, and architectural styles.
• Cultural Centripetal vs. Centrifugal Forces: Push and pull society together, creating a unique sense of place and cultural identity.
• Diffusion:
  • Relocation diffusion: The hearth shrinks as the cultural trait moves.
  • Expansion Diffusion:
    • Hierarchical diffusion: Spreads through a system of structures, often top-down.
    • Contagious diffusion: Spreads in all directions without barriers.
    • Stimulus diffusion: Adapts to existing cultural traits.
• Historical Diffusion: Occurred through colonialism and imperialism (spread of English as a lingua franca) and religion.
• Modern Diffusion: Urbanization, globalization, and the Internet have led to space-time compression, reducing distance decay.
• Cultural Resistance, Acculturation, Assimilation, Syncretism, and Multiculturalism: Cultures merge, adapt, and change, and isolate themselves.
• Religions:
  • Universalizing religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism) vs. ethnic religions (Judaism, Hinduism).
• Language: Focus on language families, origins, diffusion, and dialects.

Unit 4: Political Geography

• Nation vs. State:
  • Nation: A group of people with shared history, culture, and self-determination.
  • State: An entity with a permanent population, sovereign government, and recognition by other states.
  • Nation-state: A state made up of one nation.
  • Multinational state: A state made up of multiple nations.
  • Multistate nation: A nation existing in multiple states.
  • Stateless nation: A nation without a state.
• Self-determination: Nations' right to govern themselves without external influence to protect their cultural identity.
• Colonialism and Imperialism: Creation of political boundaries through military conquest and diffusion.
• Neocolonialism: Controlling a country through economic or political influence without direct occupation.
• Political Boundaries:
  • Relic boundaries: No longer exist, but impact the cultural landscape.
    • Antecedent boundaries: Boundaries that have 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
  • Geometric boundaries: Cultural boundaries that are straight lines that go with the parallels of latitude.
• Law of the Sea: Territorial waters (12 nautical miles), contiguous zone (24 miles), Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ, 200 nautical miles), and international waters.
• Territorial waters stretch 12 nautical miles off the coastline of a country.
• The contiguous zone, which extends another 24 miles off the coast.
• Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends 200 nautical miles off of the coastline.
• Anything past the EEZ is international waters.
• Gerrymandering: Redistricting voting districts to favor a party.
• Unitary vs. Federal States:
  • Unitary state: Concentrates power at the national government.
  • Federal state: Shares power between national and regional governments.
• Centripetal Forces: Unite a country (e.g., terrorism, irredentism, or isolated cultural groups).
• Centrifugal Forces: Push a country apart, keeping the country stronger and preventing things like devolution from occurring.
  • Devolution: Transfer of power from a national to regional government.
• State Sovereignty: State's right to govern itself is challenged by devolution, technology, foreign interference, and supernational organizations.
• Supernational Organizations: Joining organizations like the EU, NATO, or UN involves giving up some sovereign control.

Unit 5: Agriculture

• Intensive vs. Extensive Agricultural Practices:
  • Intensive: Near population centers, maximizes production with labor and capital (e.g., plantation farming, mixed crop and livestock, market gardening).
  • Extensive: Farther from population centers, needs more land, done by hand (e.g., shifting cultivation, nomadic herding, ranching).
• Subsistence vs. Commercial Agriculture:
  • Subsistence: Focuses on feeding the farmer's family/community.
  • Commercial: Aims to generate profit.
• Settlement Patterns:
  • Clustered: Higher population density.
  • Dispersed: Lower population density.
  • Linear: Along a river, road, or train.
• Survey Methods:
  • Meets and bounds: Short distances, based on geographic features.
  • Long lots: Narrow parcels connecting to transportation.
  • Township and range: Uses longitude and latitude in a grid.
• Agricultural Hearths: Fertile Crescent, Indus Valley River (origin of crops and animals).
• Agricultural Revolutions:
  • First: Neolithic Revolution, sedentary agriculture takes off.
  • Second: Industrial Revolution, new technologies increase food output, enclosure movement.
  • Green: GMOs, hybrid plants, fertilizers, pesticides increase crop yields.
• Monocropping: Growing the same crop each year.
• Monoculture: Growing one type of crop at a time, switching after each harvest.
• Advancements in technology has allowed farmers to achieve an economy of scale.
• **Value added specialty crop: ** are crops that gain in value as the production's occurring.
• Modern Agricultural Debates: GMOs, chemical fertilizers, environmental and health impacts, worker conditions, organic farming, local food movements, free trade movements, urban farming.
• Women in Agriculture: Developing countries have a larger percentage of women subsistence farmers who are traditionally paid lower wages, offered less opportunities in society, and are also more likely to be victims of discrimination. Developed countries sees women in agricultural fields. But eventually, as development continues, women are offered more economic, social, and political opportunities in society
• Bid Rent Theory: Land prices decrease with distance from urban areas, influencing land use.
• Land becomes more available because we have a lower population density.
• Increase in land prices means that we’re going to start to see more skyscrapers, more highly densely populated areas with people clustered together, and we're also more likely to see agricultural practices occur.
• Von Thunen's Model:
  • Market at the center.
  • Dairy and horticulture in the first ring.
  • Forest in the second ring.
  • Grain and field crops in the third ring.
  • Livestock in the outermost ring.

Unit 6: Urbanization

• Site and Situation Factors: Site (unique characteristics of a place), situation (connections between places).
• Connectivity and Settlements: Large settlements today interact. Cultural trends are diffused through world cities and large urban areas and eventually spread throughout the city into surrounding settlements.
• Gravity Model: Larger settlements have more interaction.
• Central Place Theory: Larger settlements, specialized businesses have a larger range, illustrating urban hierarchy.
• Central Place Theory could also analyze the locations of goods and services.
• Primate City Rule: Largest settlement has double the population of the second largest.
• Rank Size Rule: Largest settlement has half the population of the second largest, and so on.
• Urban Models:
  • Burgess Concentric Zone Model: Cities grow outwards from the CBD in rings.
  • Hoyt Sector Model: City developed in wedges with the CBD in the center.
  • Harris and Allman Multiple Nuclei Model: City has multiple CBDs.
  • Galactic Model/Periphery Model: Expansion of multiple nuclei model, edge cities form.
    *Latin American city model, which consists of a spine that connects the CBD to a wealthy shopping district. It also has a disamenity zone, which consists of high poverty neighborhoods, which may lack essential services and infrastructure.
    *Sub Saharan African city model, which consists of three different CBDs. We can also see informal settlements such as squatter settlements located around the urban area.
    *Southeast Asian city model. Here, we can see the model is based around a port with a government zone that overlooks the day to day trade.
• Density Gradient: High density near CBD (vertical buildings), medium density (single/multifamily homes), low density in suburbs (large yards).
• Infrastructure: Investing in public transportation, schools, and health care attracts residents back into urban areas, creating sustainable cities.
• Public transportation, schools, and health care attract residents back into the urban area, and they can then create more sustainable cities.
• Sustainable Cities: Smart growth policies, urban growth boundaries, new urbanism, green belts.
• Urban Controversies: Segregation, unequal economic development, loss of historical neighborhoods.
• Redlining: discriminatory practices in home loans for minority communities.
• Blockbusting: Contributed to white flight, leading to unequal economic development.
• Gentrification:
  • Raises property values and increases wealth in low-income neighborhoods, economic opportunities.
    • Cities starts to see an increase in wealth, particularly low income areas
  • Unintended consequence is the pushing out of current residents.
• Different Layers of Government: Federal, regional, state, local, and city governments.

Unit 7: Economic Development

• Globalization: Theme of this unit, drastic changes in production, migration, urbanization, and settlements.
• Formal vs. Informal Economy: Formal economies are jobs that are regulated or monitored by the government, informal economy: jobs under the table.
• Economic Sectors:
  • Primary: Natural resources.
  • Secondary: Manufacturing.
  • Tertiary: Service jobs.
    • Quaternary: Collecting and gathering of information.
      • Quinary: Jobs that are focused on the decision process. (government official or a CEO).
• International Division of Labor: Core countries use cheap resources and labor in developing countries, can be seen when we're looking at the international division of labor.
• Offshoring: Moving jobs from home country to another country.
• Post-Fordist Production, Just-in-Time Delivery, Agglomeration, Growth Poles: Increase profit margins and world trade/globalization.
• Neoliberal Policies: Free trade agreements (NAFTA), World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund.
• Tariffs: Taxes on imports to protect domestic industries.
  *The International Monetary Fund seeks to facilitate world trade and a globalized economy.
• Countries with a comparative advantage in a specific good or service, by specializing in the production of that item, they can become more efficient, and then they can trade for other products.
• Growth Indicators: GDP, GNP, GNI, Gender Inequality Index, Human Development Index.
  These metrics allow us to get a better idea of what's going on with social issues within a country
• Women in the Economy: More likely in subsistence agriculture or informal economy, low wages, less legal protection, discrimination and sexual assault.
• Microloans: Loans given by individuals within a society, not by a government organization
• Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth:
  • Traditional society: Subsistence agriculture, primary sector.
  • Preconditions for takeoff: Demand for raw materials, some secondary sector jobs.
  • Takeoff: Urbanization, more secondary sector jobs.
  • Drive to maturity: Specialization, global trade.
  • Age of mass consumption: Tertiary sector jobs, products for wants, not just needs, society overall is more developed.
• Wallerstein's World System Theory: Economic imbalance, core countries exploit less developed countries.
  There is an economic imbalance in the world, an unequal economic development.
• Dependency Theory: Core countries disproportionately benefit from trade as we can see that core countries disproportionately benefit from this trade.
  *Commodity dependence: A developing country's entire economy base
• Commodity Dependence: Developing countries' entire economy based on one commodity. If anything were to happen to the price of that commodity, it would devastate the entire economy. Core countries, if something goes south with the trade, well, they can find a different developing country to produce their products for.