AP HUG Units 1-4

  • Ecumene: The areas of permanent settlement of the Earth’s surface by humans

  • Arithmetic Density: the number of people per square mile or per square kilometer

    • AKA Crude Population Density

    • Population of an area divided by surface area

  • Physiological Density: the number of people per unit of arable land

    • Population divided by arable land area

  • Agricultural Density: the number of farmers per unit of arable land

    • Farmers divided by arable land

 The Demographic Transition Model

Video 1

  • Stage 1: Low Growth

    • Extremely high CBR: Cultural preferences, lack of contraceptives

    • Extremely high CDR: Lack of sanitation/medicine, animal attacks, war, famine

    • Very low NIR

  • Stage 2: High Growth

    • Extremely high CBR: Industrial Revolution leads to food security

    • Falling CDR: Increased sanitation/medicine, increased life expectancy, falling IMR

    • Very high NIR

  • Stage 3: Moderate Growth

    • Falling CBR: Women enter workforce, women seek educational opportunities, improved economics lessens the need for more children, as does rising Urbanization

    • Falling CDR: Further advances in medicine, increased life expectancy, still falling IMR

    • Moderate NIR

  • Stage 4: Low Growth

    • Very low CBR: Women delay marriage, women seek educational opportunities, increased contraceptive use, and family planning

    • Low CDR: Higher incomes  lead to better health outcomes

    • No NIR = Zero Population Growth (ZPG) or Falling

  • Stage 5: Negative Growth

    • Very low CBR: Couples choosing not to have kids, birth rates are falling below death rates

    • Rising CDR: Deaths rising due to increased Urbanization, antibiotic-resistant bacteria

    • Negative Population Growth

  • Basics of Malthusian Theory

    • Thomas Malthus warned that population would outpace food supply because population growth geometrically, while food supply grows arithmetically

    • Malthus made his predictions in the years after Britain entered Stage 2 of the DTM

  • Neo-Malthusians point to the dramatic loss in Earth’s natural resources coupled with unprecedented population growth as an indicator that Malthus’s ideas are still relevant today

  • Pro-natalist policies promote births

    • Finland - gives incentives when children are born

  • Anti-natalist policies seek to restrict births

  • A refugee is forced to migrate because of a negative situation like war, natural disaster, violence, or persecution. They flee to a different country

  • An internally displaced person (IDP) is forced to migrate for similar reasons, but they do not cross international boundaries

  • Asylum seekers: Refugees who seek protection from another country

  • Transnational Migration

    • Migrants leave their country of origin and enter another country

    • Migrants maintain a connection to their country of origin

    • Often settle in areas of similar migrants

    • Leave their mark on the cultural landscape

      • Ex. A woman moves from Germany to take residence in Finland

  • Transhumance

    • Migration where livestock are led to highlands areas in the Summer months and lowland areas in the Winter months 

    • A cyclical movement

    • Migration routes also connected to trade routes

      • Ex. A camel herder moves his herd from the highlands of the Atlas Mountains to the lowlands of Morocco

  • Internal

    • Permanent move within a country

    • Economics: job relocation/opportunity

    • Culture: live near those who share the same cultural traits 

    • Interregional Migrations: from one region to another

    • Intraregional Migration: movement within a region

      • Ex. Californians moving to Texas

  • Chain

    • Migration where there is some type of relationship with a previous migrant

    • Often familial

    • Can ease the burden of migration

      • Ex. A daughter gains citizenship in the US and petitions for her parents or spouse to gain citizenship

  • Step

    • A series of starts and stops

    • Can involve Intervening Obstacles and/or Intervening Opportunities

      • Ex. A migrant from Senegal stops in Casablanca, Morocco, flies to Barcelona, Spain, and finally lands in Berlin, Germany

  • Guest Workers and Remittances 

    • Temporary migrants who often have legal permission to migrate for work or education-related reasons

    • They work in Medicine, Education, Construction, and Finance

    • Often send money back to their country of origin in the form of Remittances

      • Ex. a nurse from the Philippines sends a portion of her salary back home to her family

  • Rural to Urban Migrations

    • Movement of people from rural areas to cities

    • Often drawn by; economics, housing, services

      • Ex. A person in Mabank, Texas moves to Dallas due to Dallas having a better job market

    In some cases, migrants with higher levels of training or education, like doctors, scientists, and computer programmers, may migrate intentionally in order to make more money in a different country. This phenomenon is referred to as “brain drain”
    Some countries place quotas, or limits, on the number of immigrants admitted to certain countries

  • Cultural relativism 

    • Evaluating a culture by its own standards can humanize a cultural group

    • This approach fosters understanding and appreciation of diverse practices and beliefs, allowing for more effective cross-cultural communication and collaboration.

  • Ethnocentrism

    • Evaluating another culture through the lens of one’s own culture

      • This can lead to thoughts of cultural superiority

      • Can vary from simple thoughts to violence

-toponyms (place names)

-ethnic enclaves(a geographic area with a large concentration of people from a specific ethnic group)

  • Centripetal

    • Unites a group of people

      • Common language

      • Strong sense of nationalism

      • Pride in a National/Olympic team

      • Ethnic/Religious homogeneity

  • Centrifugal

    • Things that divide a group of people

      • Ethnic discrimination

      • Political unrest/division

      • Human rights issues

      • Economic inequality

  • Examples

    • Centripetal - the Kurds

      • Ethnic homogeneity

      • Religious homogeneity

      • Unique flag

      • Desire their own homeland - Kurdistan

    • Centripetal & Centrifugal - Koreas

      • Centripetal:

        • The Island of Dokdo

        • East Sea naming vs. Sea of Japan

        • Japanese aggression during WW2

        • Ethnic homogeneity

      • Centrifugal:

        • Different forms of government

        • Religious freedom

        • ROK Alliance with the United States

        • DPRK Alliance with Communist Bloc

Types of Diffusion

  • Relocation Diffusion

    • Ideas spread through people physically moving and bringing cultural phenomena, innovations, diseases, and more with them

      • Ex. Spanish being spoken in South and Central America

  • Contagious Diffusion

    • The cultural phenomenon spreads rapidly to almost everyone

      • Ex. Spanish flu, Islam, Memes and viral videos

  • Hierarchical Diffusion

    • Ideas spread hierarchically - starting with someone of power in society and spreading down the social hierarchy to some people

    • Can also be that it stars in large cities and eventually spreads to smaller towns

      • Ex. Clothing fads

  • Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion

    • Ideas spread the reverse of hierarchically - from less populated areas to smaller towns up to larger cities and people of power

      • Ex. Walmart

  • Stimulus Diffusion

    • The full idea does not spread, but the main or underlying idea spreads

      • Ex. McDonald’s

  • Other vocab:

  • Acculturation: when a group of people in one culture adopts traits from another

  • Creolization: the process of the mixing of cultural traits, primarily languages

  • Lingua Franca: language mutually understood by the members of a society

  • Time-Space Convergence

    • Places and people are getting closer together because of improvements in technology that make transportation and communication easier.

  • Cultural Divergence vs. Cultural Convergence

    • Cultural Divergence - People may start to leave their culture or abandon certain elements of it

    • Cultural Convergence - People start having one mass, global culture

      • Both are a result of globalization and improvement in communication technologies and often result in the loss of unique cultures

  • Religion

    • Universalizing religion

      • Research as many people as the group can

    • Ethnic Religions

      • Stay close to home, within a specific group, and don’t seek converts

    • Branches

      • A large fundamental branch of a religion

    • Denomination

      • A more localized subgroup of a religion, often with religious autonomy

    • Monotheistic

      • Worshipping one deity

    • Polytheistic

      • Worshipping many deities

  • Acculturation

    • Adopting elements of a different culture, usually the prominent one

      • People wearing jeans all over the world

      • Eating McDonald’s or other fast food, or an immigrant slowly changing their diet

  • Assimilation

    • When a minority group eventually adopts the prominent culture; sometimes it is somewhat forced

      • American Indians being forced to wear English clothes, go to school, and learn English

  • Syncretism

    • Blending and merging of different cultures together

      • Thai food - mix of Indian and Chinese foods; sushi burrito, kimchi taco; Thanksgiving

      • Elements of religion - Christianity out of Judaism, Buddhism out of Hinduism

  • Multiculturalism

    • Cultural diversity within a society, often because of immigration (forced or voluntary)

      • United States, Canada, Brazil


What is Sequent Occupance?

  • “Sequence” + “Occupy”

    • The cultural marks left on the landscape by each group of people that have occupied a place over the course of history

  • Nation-State

    • A state where the borders of a national group’s homeland coincide with the borders of the state

    • Population is linked through common culture and history

    • Tend to be small and somewhat isolated

      • Ex. Japan, Iceland 

  • Stateless Nation

    • National group is spread out over several different states

    • The national group is the minority group in each state

    • Have little to no political power in each state

      • Ex: Kurds, Palestinians 

  • Multinational State

  • Country with several national groups within their borders

  • Often one group is dominant and controls political, economic, and social power, 

    • Ex. Canada, United Kingdom, Russia

  • Multi-State Nation

    • National group’s homeland has a state of its own and also spreads across its borders into other countries

    • The national group controls political, economic, and social power in its own country and influences other countries

      • Ex. Germans, Koreans, Hungarians

  • state has a permanent population

  • Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous Regions

    • Defined areas inside a state

    • Semi-autonomous regions have  a moderate degree of self-government and freedom to govern themselves 

      • Ex: Hong Kong, Macau

    • Autonomous regions have a high degree of self-government and freedom to govern themselves

      • Ex: Native American reservations, Cook Islands

  • Imperialism -  The larger idea of creating an empire by exerting force to control other nations often from afar

  • Colonialism - The actual practice of claiming territories and settling there to exert economic and social control

    • Ex. Spain colonizing South America, British colonizing South Asia, Berlin Conference 1884-1885

  • Devolution

    • Breaking up of a state into smaller units or the passing of power from central to lower governments

      • Yugoslavia into Balkan states

  • Neocolonialism

    • Developed countries exert economic, political, military, cultural power over developing countries

    • Transnational companies based in the former mother countries often control the extraction of natural resources and labor in former colonies 

      • Foreign companies dominate oil extraction in the Middle East

      • Foreign companies exploit cheap labor for factories in Southeast Asia

    • Foreign countries loan money to developing countries that they are unable to pay back

  • Shatterbelts

    • Areas where larger regional or global political or cultural divisions collide and cause conflict at a local scale

      • Cold War political conflicts created shatterbelts in Korea, Europe, and Vietnam

  • Chokepoints

    • Areas where the physical geography creates a narrow opening, like a strait, that makes it difficult for trade or other travel between two points

    • Important choke points include:

      • Strait of Hormuz

  • Relic Boundary

    • Former boundary that no longer exists but still holds some kind of significance (economic, cultural, etc.)

      • Ex: Berlin Wall

  • Superimposed Boundary

    • Boundaries that are drawn by outside powers and tend to ignore existing boundaries of social, cultural, or ethnic differences

      • Ex. Africa after Berlin Conference (1885)

  • Antecedent Boundary

    • Boundaries drawn before many people live in an area and establish a cultural landscape.

  • Geometric Boundary

    • Boundary that follows a straight line, often latitude or longitude lines

    • They can also be superimposed or antecedent

      • Ex. USA and Canada, Parts of NA, Many US States

  • Subsequent Boundary

    • Boundaries drawn where people have already settled with cultures already established (distinguished from antecedent)

      • Ex. Much of Europe

  • Consequent Boundary

    • A kind of subsequent boundary that is drawn to accommodate existing differences among people such as ethnicity, language, religion, and more

      • Ex. Balkans after Yugoslavia, India and Pakistan, Nunavut in Canada

  • A defined boundary is established by a legal document

    • A treaty that separates countries

    • A legal document that shows property lines between 

  • A delimited boundary is a line drawn on a map that shows the limits of the government’s jurisdiction

  • A demarcated boundary is identified by physical markers or barriers

    • Town limit signs

    • Walls or fences on the border

  • Boundary Dispute

    • Definitional (Positional): Conflicts over the interpretation of documents defining a boundary or the way it is shown on the ground

      • Ex: Inaccurate maps of the Andes have created a dispute over the border between Argentina and Chile

    • Locational (Territorial): Conflicts between states or regions over the ownership of a given war

      • Ex: dispute over the ownership of the Rhineland led to conflict between Germany and France

    • Operational (Functional): Conflicts over the national policies applied at a border

      • Ex. Visa requirements at the US-Canada border after 9/11

    • Allocational (Resource): conflict over the use of resources created or conflicted by a boundary

      • Ex: Iraq-Kuwait conflict over access to the Rumaila Oil Field

  • UNCLOS Was Negotiated to Alleviate Disputes

    • The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea regulates maritime boundaries and resources

    • UNCLOS established territorial claims:

      • A country’s territory extends 12 nautical miles from shore

      • A country’s contiguous zone extends 12 to 24 nautical miles from shore

    • UNCLOS regulates resource claims:

      • A country’s exclusive economic zone extends 200 to 350 nautical miles from shore

      • Anyone can travel in international waters

  • Gerrymandering Methods

    • There are different methods to give your party an advantage, such as:

      • Packing - making a district full of the opposition party voters

      • Cracking - spreading out the opposition party voters throughout many districts

  • Unitary and Federal States

    • Governments are either unitary or federal in their power structure

      • Unitary states have a strong centralized government structure

        • Power is concentrated in a national assembly inside a national capital city

        • Established due to a country being geographically small and having a populations that is homogeneous 

          • Ex. UK, France, China

      • Federal states have a decentralized government structure

        • Power is shared between a national assembly inside a national capital city and local assemblies inside local capital cities

  • There are many factors that can lead to the devolution of states:

  • Ethnic separatism

    • When there are many ethnic groups in a country and one ethnic group wants stronger political power, especially if there is a history of self-rule

    • Ex. Basque and Catalans; Kurds; South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia 

  • Ethnic cleansing

    • The deliberate removal or killing of a particular ethnic group

    • Ex. Yugoslavia, Holocaust, Rwandan genocide, Rohingya

  • Supranationalism

    • When several countries form an organization to achieve common goals and benefits for all the countries.