AP Human Geography - Cheatsheet Notes

5 Themes of Geography

  • Location: Absolute (latitude, longitude)
  • Place: Physical and human characteristics of a place
  • Human-environmental interaction: How people interact with the environment around them
  • Movement: Mobility of people, goods, and ideas across places
  • Regions: Areas that are distinctive from one another

Types of Geography

  • Modern (science)
  • Human (culture)
  • Physical (landforms/vegetation)

Map Types

  • Isoline: Line of equal value represent data such as pressure and temperature.
  • Choropleth: Color shows information.
  • Proportional Symbol: Size correlates to variable’s intensity.
  • Dot: Dot shows info

Types of Sensing

  • Remote Sensing
  • GPS (Global Positioning System)
  • GIS (Geographical Information Science)

Important Models

  • Population Pyramids: Percentage of males and females of an age group.
  • Demographic Transition Model: Sequence of demographic changes - country moves from high birth and death rates to low.
  • Epidemiologic Transition Model: Distinct cause of death at each stage of DTM.
  • Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration: 10 rules about migration.
  • Malthusian Theory of Population Growth: Human population grows more rapidly than food supply.

Key Characteristics

  • Crude birth rate: Number of births per 1000 people.
  • Crude death rate: Number of deaths per 1000 people.
  • Emigration: Out.
  • Endemic
  • Epidemic
  • Feticide: Killing a fetus.
  • Immigration: In.
  • Infanticide: Killing an infant.

Types of Density

  • Arithmetic: Number of objects.
  • Physiological: Number of people.
  • Agricultural: Number of farmers.

Types of Culture

  • Folk: Traditions, dress modes.
  • Popular: Trends in diet, music, and food.
  • Local: Specific to people in a community - customs, traits.
  • Material: Art, sports, dance.
  • Non-material: Beliefs, practices, aesthetics.

Cultural Relativism

  • A person’s beliefs, values, and practices understood based on their own culture.

Ethnocentrism

  • Own culture is the center; other cultures evaluated based on it.

Universalizing vs. Ethnic Religions

  • Universalizing Religion: Spread through expansion and relocation diffusion.
    • Example: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism.
  • Ethnic Religion: Found near the hearth or spread through relocation diffusion.
    • Example: Hinduism, Judaism.

Acculturation

  • Weaker culture adopts dominant traits of stronger one.

Assimilation

  • Weaker culture replaced by stronger one.

Syncretism

  • Blending of 2 cultures.

Multiculturalism

  • More than one culture in one area.

Geopolitics

  • Interplay between international political relations and territories.

Sovereignty

  • Authority of state to govern itself.

State Vs. Nation

  • State: Political unit, independent country, defined boundaries, full control over land and people.
  • Nation: Cultural unit, common ancestry, common religion.

Vocabulary

  • Nation-state: Japan, Denmark, Poland.
  • State-less nation: Kurds, Basques, Palestinians.
  • Multinational state: Former USSR, Lebanon.
  • Multistate nation: Kurds, Koreans.

Types of Boundaries

  • Antecedent: Before human cultures.
  • Subsequent: Evolved through cultural landscape.
  • Superimposed: Forcibly put by outside party.
  • Relict: No longer functions as a boundary.

Irredentism

  • Ethnic group that aims to reoccupy area - East/West Germany.

Balkanization

  • State fragmenting into smaller states - Former Yugoslavia.

Self-determination

  • Ethnicities have right to govern themselves - Czech Republic

Intensive farming

  • Market gardening, plantation agriculture, mixed crop/livestock systems.

Extensive farming

  • Shifting cultivation, nomadic herding, ranching.

Rural Settlement Patterns

  • Clustered: Close proximity.
  • Dispersed: Isolated from neighbors.
  • Linear: Along a road or river - straight line.

Rural Survey Methods

  • Metes and bounds: Relies on descriptions of land ownership and natural features.
  • Township and range: Rectangular land division scheme.
  • Long lot: Land divided into narrow parcels.

Diffusion Patterns

  • 1st Ag. Revolution (Neolithic)
  • 2nd Ag. Revolution
  • Columbian Exchange

Urbanization

  • Population of city grows

Urban Models

  • Concentric Zone Model: City grows outward in series of rings.
  • Sector Model: Hoyt; city develops in sectors.
  • Multiple Nuclei Model: City includes more than one center around which activities revolve.
  • Galactic/Periphery Model: Modified multiple nuclei model; accounts for suburbanization; business nodes form on outside.

Squatter Settlements

  • Low residential area, developed without legal right to land; high mortality, unhealthy living, increased cheap labor, unemployment, political unrest, pollution.

Site/Situation

  • Site: Characteristics that make city easy to defend.
  • Situation: Favor city growth.

Economy Sectors

  • Primary: Extracting raw material and harvesting.
  • Secondary: Processes raw materials into finished goods.
  • Tertiary: Provides services.
  • Quaternary: Collecting, processing info.
  • Quinary: Economic activity that requires high-level decision making.

Economic Activities

  • Formal Economic Activities: Legally registered, monitored, taxed.
  • Informal Economic Activities: Not legally registered or taxed.

Rostow Model

  • Traditional society, pre-conditions takeoff, takeoff, drive to maturity, high mass consumption.

Weber’s Least Cost

  • Transport, Labor, Agglomeration

FRQ Tips

  • Keep it simple! Restate the prompt, and be straightforward. Don’t waste time giving extra explanations!
  • Always label the specific part you are referring to (A-G)!
  • Read the captions and other text to explain and understand stimuli! Take into account numerical data and units when reading/analyzing graphs!

Common Tasks

  • Identify: State the answer
  • Describe: Explain how something works
  • Explain: Show patterns btw concepts
  • Compare: Sim and diff btw concepts