AP Human Geography Exam Review

Thematic Maps & Map Projections

  • Read and analyze maps to interpret data patterns at different scales.
  • Map projections distort shape, area, distance, or direction (e.g., Mercator distorts shape/size but maintains direction).

GIS & Research

  • GIS layers data, revealing spatial relationships.
  • Quantitative research: numerical data (e.g., census).
  • Qualitative research: attitudes, beliefs.
  • Governments and businesses use both for decisions (e.g., school locations, store placement).

Spatial Concepts

  • Technology reduces distance decay, increasing connectivity.
  • Space and patterns create a unique sense of place/cultural landscape.

Environmental Sustainability

  • Environmental determinism: environment restricts culture/society.
  • Environmental possibilism: society shapes the environment.

Scale & Scale of Analysis

  • Scale of analysis: how data is organized (national, local).
  • Scale: amount of Earth's surface viewed (small scale = world map, less detail; large scale = county map, more detail).

Types of Regions

  • Functional/nodal: organized around a node (e.g., airport).
  • Perceptual/vernacular: based on beliefs/feelings (e.g., "The Middle East").
  • Formal/uniform: common attributes (e.g., state boundaries).

Population Distribution

  • People live where opportunities exist (economic, social, political, environmental).
  • Urban areas offer more opportunities, attracting migrants.

Population Density

  • Arithmetic density: total people / total land.
  • Physiological density: total population / arable land.
  • Agricultural density: # of farmers / arable land; indicates efficiency.

Population Metrics

  • CBR, CDR, NIR, growth rate, sex ratios, doubling time, dependency ratios.
  • Population pyramids: large base = early demographic transition; top-heavy = later stage, dependency ratio issues.

Demographic Transition Model (DTM)

  • Stage 1: low growth (high CBR/CDR).
  • Stage 2: deaths fall (industrial/medical revolution), births remain high.
  • Stage 3: urbanization increases, births fall, moderate growth.
  • Stage 4: women gain opportunities, births/deaths match (low), zero population growth (ZPG).
  • Stage 5 (debated): deaths rise above births, population decreases.

Epidemiologic Transition Model (EPT)

  • Follows DTM, focusing on causes of death in each stage.
  • Stage 5 EPT has variances.

Population Policies

  • Pronatalism: policies to increase births.
  • Antinatalism: policies to decrease births.

Malthus & Neo-Malthusians

  • Malthus: population grows exponentially, food arithmetically -> catastrophe.
  • Neo-Malthusians: Malthus was limited; considers all resources, potential for exceeding Earth's carrying capacity.

Migration

  • Push factors: reasons to leave.
  • Pull factors: reasons to move to an area.
  • Economic reasons are primary.

Types of Migration

  • Forced migration: life/safety at risk.
  • Voluntary migration: migrant chooses to move.
  • Counter migration: migration leads to influence between points.

Culture

  • Cultural relativism: viewing a culture through its perspective.
  • Ethnocentrism: judging a culture based on your own norms.
  • Cultural Landscape: land use patterns reflecting culture.
  • Centripetal/centrifugal forces: push/pull society together/apart, influence cultural identity.

Diffusion

  • Relocation diffusion: trait moves, hearth shrinks.
  • Expansion diffusion: trait grows.
  • Hierarchical: from structures top-down.
  • Contagious: spreads in all directions.
  • Stimulus : adapts to new regions.
  • Colonialism and Imperialism helped spread language (English) and religion (Christianity, Islam).
  • Space-time compression reduces distance decay via the internet.

Religion & Language

  • Universalizing religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism) seeks to convert new members.
  • Ethnic religions (Judaism, Hinduism) don't try to please everyone and want to protect their identity.
  • Focus on language families, origin, diffusion, and dialects.

Nations vs. States

  • Nation: shared history/culture, self-determination.
  • State: population, sovereign government, recognized by other states.
  • Nation-state: one nation.
  • Multinational state: multiple nations.
  • Multi-state nation: nation in multiple states.
  • Stateless nation: nation without a state (e.g., Kurdish nation).

Political Concepts

  • Self-determination: right to self-govern.
  • Relic boundaries: no longer exist but impact landscape.
  • Antecedent boundaries: before settlement.
  • Subsequent boundaries: based on ethnic groups.
  • Consequent boundaries: accommodate cultural differences.
  • Superimposed boundaries: created by foreign state.
  • Geometric boundaries: straight lines, latitude parallels.

Law of the Sea

  • Territorial waters: 12 nautical miles.
  • Contiguous zone: 24 miles.
  • Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ): 200 miles.
  • International waters: beyond EEZ.

Gerrymandering

  • Redistricting voting districts to favor a party.

State Structures

  • Unitary state: power centralized.
  • Federal state: power shared nationally/regionally.
  • Centripetal forces: unite a country.
  • Centrifugal forces: divide a country; can cause devolution.

State Sovereignty

  • Challenged by devolution, advancements in technology, foreign interference, supranational organizations.

Agricultural Practices: Extensive vs. Intensive

  • Intensive: near population centers, maximizing output, labor/capital intensive (e.g., plantation farming, mixed crop/livestock, market gardening).
  • Extensive: farther from population centers, more land, less labor (e.g., shifting cultivation, nomadic herding, ranching).

Subsistence vs. Commercial Agriculture

  • Subsistence: for family/community, not profit.
  • Commercial: for profit, larger scale, more technology.

Settlement Patterns

  • Clustered: high density.
  • Dispersed: low density.
  • Linear: along a transportation route.

Survey Methods

  • Metes and bounds: short distances, geographic features.
  • Long lots: narrow parcels with transportation access.
  • Township and range: longitude/latitude grid.

Agricultural Revolutions

  • First (Neolithic): Sedentary agriculture.
  • Second (Industrial): New technologies, food surplus -> population boom.
  • Green: GMOs, fertilizers, higher yields.

Agricultural Practices Consequences

  • Monocropping: deplete nutrients.
  • Monoculture: switch crops.
  • Economy of scale: large farms produce cheaper.
  • Value-added specialty crop: increase value in production.
  • Organic movements, local food, urban farming: counter issues in modern agriculture.

Bid Rent Theory

  • Land prices decrease moving away from urban areas.
  • High prices close to urban areas cause skyscrapers.
  • Lower prices farther away from urban area allows for agricultural practices.

Von Thunen's Model

  • Market at center
  • First ring Dairy and horticulture
  • Second ring Forest
  • Third ring Field crops
  • Fourth ring Livestock
  • Wilderness outside of markets

Site & Situation Factors

  • Site: unique characteristics (climate, resources).
  • Situation: connections between places (rivers, roads).

Gravity Model

  • Predicts interaction between places; Larger settlements have more interaction.

Central Place Theory

  • Larger settlements have a larger range and specializes buisnesses for long distance.

Primate City Rule vs. Rank-Size Rule

  • Primate: largest settlement is double population of second largest.
  • Rank Size: large settlement is about half the populations more than the second largest.

Urban Models

  • Concentric zones model= growth outwards w/ Series rings.
  • Hoyt sector model= economic/ enviromental factors developes sectors w/ cbd center.
  • Multiple Nuclei Model=Nutritional CBD attracts business/people.
  • Galactic Model= Edge cities expand w/ Multiple Nuclei.

LDC

  • Latin American Spine connects wealthy shopping districts to CBD with disamenity of poverty neighborhood.
  • African Three CBDs with squatter settlements.
  • Asian based on port with overlooks

Government Layers

  • Challenges with policy making due to federal, regional, state, local, county governments with different planning

Economies

Formal vs Informal:
regulated vs under the table

Primary: natural resources
Secondary: manufacture and production
Tertiary Services, Collecting, gathering
Quaternary decision procesess