Gradesavers For AP Human Geography

Globalization Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.
Local Diversity one of the two factors that are pulling people in opposite directions.
Transnational Corporation A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where
its headquarters or shareholders are located.
Human Geography the branch of geography dealing with how human activity affects or is influenced by the earth's surface.
Physical Geography the branch of geography dealing with natural features and processes.
Map A two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth’s surface or a portion of it.
Place A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular character.
Region The system used to transfer locations from Earth’s surface to a flat map.
Scale The relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth’s surface.
Space The physical gap or interval between two objects.
Connections Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.
Network a group or system of interconnected people or things.
Projection:
• Mercator Projection The map where Greenland is projected too big.
• Robinson Projection The map where Antarctica is too large.
• Goode Projection The map shaped like an “m”.
• Peters Projection The map where all of the countries appear to be stretched.
Distortion When a map isn’t exact/ has a noticeable flaw.
Types of Maps:
• Thematic A map with a theme.
• Statistical A map of statistics (numbers).
• Cartogram A map that is visibly distorted, in order to display or show the information.
• Dot A map that has dots all over it to show the presence of the theme.
• Choropleth A map that uses different colors/shading.
• Isoline A map with lines showing the height or depth of the theme.
Land Ordinance of 1785 A law that divided much of the United States into townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers.
GPS A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and
receivers.
GIS A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data.
Remote Sensing The acquisition of data about Earth’s surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods.
Location The position of anything on Earth’s surface.
Toponym The name given to a portion of Earth’s surface.
Site The physical character of a place.
Situation The location of a place relative to other places.
Absolute Location The exact location of something.
Relative Location The use of a well-known place to try to point out where something really is.
Global Location:
• Meridian An arc drawn on the map between the North and South Poles.
• Prime Meridian The meridian, designated as 0 degrees longitude that passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.
• Longitude The system used to measure distance east and west of the Prime Meridian.
• Latitude The system used to measure distance north and south of the equator.
• Parallel The imaginary line extending around the earth, parallel to the equator.
• Equator An imaginary line on earth’s surface equidistant between the North and South Pole.
• Tropic of Capricorn The line between Antarctica and the equator.
• Tropic of Cancer The line between the equator and the North Pole.
• International Dateline An arc that for the most part follows 180 degrees longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas. Then you cross the International Date Line heading east, the clock moves back 24 hours. When you go west, the calendar moves ahead one day.
• Greenwich Mean Time The time in that time zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 0 degrees longitude.
• Time Zone The 40 regions/areas with a different time than the next by about ½ an hour.
Cultural Landscape The fashioning of a natural landscape by a culture group.
Physical Landscape The different landforms that make up Earth.
Built Landscape The area of land known for its features and patterns reflecting human occupation and use of natural resources.
Regions:
• Formal An area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics.
• Functional An area organized around a node or focal point.
• Vernacular An area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity.
Mental Map A representation of a portion of Earth’s surface based on what an individual knows about a place, containing personal
impressions of what is in a place and where places are located.
Spatial Association Where two or more things are distributed or spaced out similarly.
Environmental Association Where two or more pieces of land have a similar characteristic.
Possibilism The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions but that people have the ability to adjust to
the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives.
Distribution:
• Density The frequency with which something exits within a given unit of area.
• Arithmetic Density The total number of people divided by the total land area.
• Physiological Density The number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture.
• Agricultural Density The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture.
• Concentration The spread of something over a given area.
• Pattern The geometric or regular arrangement of something in a study area.
Space-Time Compression The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place as a result of improved
communications and transport systems.
Distance Decay The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin.
Diffusion:
• Hearth A region from which innovative ideas originate.
• Relocation Diffusion The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.
• Expansion Diffusion The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process.
• Hierarchical Diffusion The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places.
• Contagious Diffusion The rapid widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.
• Stimulus Diffusion The spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected.
TODALSIGS
T: Title
O: Orientation
D: Date
A: Author
L: Legend
S: Scale
I: Index
G: Grid
S: Source
Demography: The scientific study of population characteristics.
Overpopulation/Underpopulation: The number of people in an area exceeding/below the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard of living.
Ecumene: The portion of Earth’s surface occupied by permanent human settlement.
Crude Death Rate (CDR): The total number of deaths in a year for every 1,000 people alive in the society.
Crude Birth Rate (CBR): The total number of live births in a year for every 1,000 people alive in the society.
Natural Increase Rate (NIR): The percentage growth of a population in a year, computed as the crude birth rate, minus the crude death rate.
Doubling Time: The number of years needed to double a population, assuming a constant rate of natural increase.
Mortality: Deaths from a particular cause.
Total Fertility Rate (TFR): The average number of children a woman will have throughout her child bearing years.
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR): The total number of deaths in a year among infants under 1 year old for every 1,000 live births in a society.
Life Expectancy: The average number of years an individual can be expected to live, given the current social, economic, and medical conditions. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live.
Agricultural Revolution: The time when human beings first domesticated plants and animals and no longer relied entirely on hunting and gathering.
Medical Revolution: Medical technology invented in Europe and North America that is diffused to the poorer countries of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Improved medical practices have eliminated many of the traditional causes of death in poorer countries and enabled more people to live longer and healthier lives.
Zero Population Growth: A decline of the total fertility rate to the point where the natural increase rate equals zero.
Population Pyramid: A bar graph representing the distribution of population by age and sex.
Dependency Ratio: The number of people under the age of 15 and over the age of 64, compared to the number of people active in the labor force.
Sex Ratio: The number of males per 100 females in the population.
Neo-Malthusians: People with the same basic concerns as Malthus, who advocate for population control programs, to ensure resources for current and future populations.
Malthus Critic: A critique of Malthus' ideas on population by a contemporary.
Pandemic: Disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects a very high proportion of the population.
Age Distribution: The proportionate numbers of persons in successive age categories in a given population. Age distributions differ among countries mainly because of differences in the levels and trends of fertility.
Carrying Capacity: The number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation.
Cohort: The study groups follow a group of people who do not have the disease for a period of time and see who develops the disease (new incidence). The cohort cannot therefore be defined as a group of people who already have the disease.
Demographic Momentum: The tendency for growing population to continue growing after a fertility decline because once this happens a country moves to a different stage in the demographic transition model.
Diffusion of Fertility Control: The spread of birth control on an area.
Disease Diffusion: How disease spreads in a population.
Gendered Space: It is a place where only members of one gender goes.
J-Curve: The trend of a country's trade balance following a devaluation or depreciation under a certain set of assumptions.
Maladaptation: A maladaptation is a trait that is (or has become) more harmful than helpful.
Natality: The ratio of the number of births to the size of the population; birth rate.
Population Densities: A measurement of population per unit area or unit volume.
Population Distributions: The pattern of where people live.
Population Explosion: A rapid increase in the size of a population caused by such factors as a sudden decline in infant mortality or an increase in life expectancy.
Population Projection: Estimates of the population for future dates.
Rate of Natural Increase: The crude birth rate minus the crude death rate of a population.
S-Curve: A type of curve that shows the growth of a variable in terms of another variable, often expressed as units of time.
Standard of Living: The level of wealth, comfort, material goods and necessities available to a certain socioeconomic class in a certain geographic area.
Sustainability: How biological systems remain diverse and productive.
Anti-natalism Policy: A philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth, standing in opposition to natalism.
Pro-natalism Policy: A belief that promotes human reproduction. Natalism promotes child-bearing and parenthood as desirable for social reasons and to ensure national continuance. Natalism in public policy typically seeks to create financial and social incentives for populations to reproduce, such as providing tax incentives that reward having and supporting children. Adherents of more stringent takes on natalism may seek to limit access to abortion and contraception, as well.
Migration: A form of relocation diffusion involving a permanent move to a new location.
Emigration: Migration from a location.
Immigration: Migration to a new location.
Push Factors: A factor that induces people to leave old residences.
Pull Factors: A factor that induces people to move to a new location.
Intervening Obstacle and Opportunity: An environmental or cultural feature of the landscape that hinders migration.
International Migration: Permanent migration from one country to another.
Internal Migration: Permanent movement within a particular country.
Voluntary Migration: Permanent migration undertaken by choice.
Forced Migration: Permanent movement compelled usually by cultural factors.
Unauthorized (undocumented) Immigrants: People who enter a country without proper documents.
Chain Migration: Migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there.
Interregional Migration: Permanent movement from one region of a country to another.
Intraregional Migration: Permanent movement within one region of a country.
Migratory Movement: Human relocation movement from a source to a destination without a return journey, as opposed to cyclical movement.
Guest Workers: Workers who migrate to the more developed countries of Northern and Western Europe, usually from Southern and Eastern Europe or from North Africa, in search of higher-paying jobs.
Quotas: A limited or fixed number or amount of people or things, in particular.
Brain Drain: Large-scale emigration by talented people.
Refugee: People who are forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion.
Activity Space: The range or spectrum of environmental conditions and characteristics suitable for the normal activity of an organism.
Cyclic Movement: Movement that has a closed route and is repeated annually or seasonally.
Intercontinental Migration: Permanent movement from one country to a different country on the same continent.
Rural-Urban Migration: Urbanization is the physical growth of urban areas which result in rural migration and even suburban concentration into cities, particularly the very large ones.
Periodic Movement: Motion that recurs over and over and the period of time required for each recurrence remains the same.
Personal Space: The region surrounding a person which they regard as psychologically theirs.
Place Utility: The process of increasing the attractiveness of a product to a group of consumers by altering its physical location.
Space-Time Prism: The set of all points that can be reached by an individual given a maximum possible speed from a starting point in space-time and an ending point in space-time.
Step Migration: A series of shorter, less extreme migrations from a person's place of origin to final destination—such as moving from a farm, to a village, to a town, and finally to a city.
Transhumance: A pattern of regular seasonal movement by human groups.
Transmigration: To migrate from one country to another in order to settle there.
Nomadism: A group of people who have no fixed home and move according to the seasons from place to place in search of food, water, and grazing land.

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