AP HG Test Flash Cards

human geography model

(?) a diagram shaped like a flower showing different fields within human geography and what they encompass; includes political geography (political science), population geography (demography), urban geography (urban studies, urban social science planning), social geography (sociology, language, religious studies), economic geography (regional economics, economics), behavioral geography (psychology, economics), and cultural geography (anthropology, sociology, history)

physical geography

(this)ers study spatial characteristics of the earth's physical and biological systems; many natural scientists, including meteorologists, climatologists, ecologists, oceanographers, geologists, soil scientists, and hydrologists, study this; through the understanding of the spatial variability of the phenomena under investigation each of these types of scientists gains insight into why certain phenomena behave the way they do in certain places

global population distribution patterns

60% of the world's population lives within 60 miles (98 kilometers) of the ocean; population concentrates in areas with high soil arability/fertility, which also tend to have mild climates; population is becoming more urban; currently a little over half of the global population is urban with much higher rates in highy developed regions

demographic transition model

DTM (picture)

Peters projection

a cylindrical projection that retains accurate sizes of all the world's landmasses; reveals how large the landmasses near the equator actually are; often viewed as a political statement- an attempt to focus attention on the world's poorest countries

pattern

a distribution concept that conveys how objects, features, or phenomena are spatially situated in relation to one another; for example, some features can have a linear pattern, some centralized, some triangular, etc.

cognitive maps

a dynamic internal representation of a place or environment; the sketch map is the external representation of the spatial information that exists in a person's head; each one of these is highly individual, dependent on information an individual deems important, and is limited by amount and type of experience an individual has with a place

cohort

a group of individuals who share a common, temporal demographic experience- typically people of a similar age range, but its definition can be based on other criteria, such as time of marriage or time of graduation; sometimes used to understand dependency ratios- the youth this includes the population under 15, the old-age this includes the population over 65, while the middle this includes the economically productive members of a country, or those between the ages of 15 and 64

HIV/AIDS

a major and dramatic exception to recent population growth trends, particularly in the developing world, where the epidemic is having great effects on birth rates, death rates, and life expectancy; currently the third most common cause of death worldwide and expected to surpass the Black Death of the 14th century as history's worst-ever epidemic; Sub-Saharan Africa has been particularly hard-hit by this disease- some countries have had life expectancy values cut in half as a result of dramatic increases in death rates

connectivity

a measure of all the means of connection and communication between places; virtually synonymous with relative distance as some places are highly connected to one another yet separated by significant distances

dependency ratio

a measure of the economic impact of younger and older cohorts on the economically productive members of a population; younger cohorts are typically children under the age of 15 (ineligible to work), while older cohorts are over the age of 65 (retired members of a population); in some countries this includes only males in the economically productive cohort if the local culture prohibits women's participation in the workforce

geographic information system (GIS)

a software program that allows geographers to map, analyze, and model spatial data; uses thematic layers, consisting of individual maps that contain specific features such as roads, stream networks, or elevation contours

distortion

all flat maps are (this)ed as a result of projecting a three-dimensional surface onto a two-dimensional surface; the only accurate representation of the earth's surface is a globe; some projections this certain features in favor of preserving others; generally, the major features that get (this)ed or preserved are shape, area, and direction

cartographic scale

also called map scale, refers to the ratio between distance on a map and the actual distance on the earth's surface; ratio remains constant despite units (ex: 1: 200 means that 1 unit on the map is equivalent to 200 of that same unit in reality); on small-scale maps, ratio between map units and ground units is small, and map represents a larger piece of the earth's surface; on large-scale maps, ratio between map units and ground units is large, meaning map represents a relatively small piece of the earth's surface

absolute distance

an exact measure of the separation between two points using a standard measure, such as inches, meters, or miles

Robinson projection

an example of an attempt to balance projection errors; does not maintain accurate area, shape distance, or direction, but minimizes errors in each; provides an aesthetically pleasing balance leading to its frequent use by cartographers at organizations such as the National Geographic Society (which is where the projection was made)

global positioning system (GPS)

an integrated network of satellites that orbit the earth, broadcasting local information, in terms of latitude and longitude, to handheld receivers on the earth's surface

spatial perspective

an intellectual framework that allows geographers to look at the earth in terms of the relationships between various places; geographers look at the spatial distribution of different types of phenomena and ask why and how certain phenomena come to occur in certain places; some major questions of geographers are: how do two places interact economically, socially, and culturally? why do some places have more in common than others? how are social phenomena conveyed over time and space?

generalization

averaging over details; in a cartographic context this results from scaling changes; small-scale maps have high this, or less detail, but show larger pieces of the earth's surface area; large-scale maps have less this, or more detail, but show smaller pieces of the earth's surface; a map of the entire United States (small scale) will not show the small towns and villages that would appear on a map of a local area (large scale)

cognitive distance

based on one's perceived separation between two or more points; for example, the distance TO a destination may be perceived as longer than the distance FROM that same destination

illegal immigration

can be characterized as involuntary but unforced migrants; individuals choose to risk their lives in the migration decision- a decision that is typically motivated by dire economic situations within their own country; these individuals are also called undocumented workers

equal-area projection

cartographers using or making these types of projections are interested in the preservation of an area; in other words, shapes or directions are distorted but sizes of landmasses are correct in relation to each other

distribution concepts

concepts that are used to understand how certain objects, features, and phenomena are organized in space; concentration, density, dispersion, and pattern are all these

baby boomers

consist of individuals born post WWII (between 1946 and 1964); they are the largest population cohort in United States demographic history; as this large generation of individuals enters retirement, the burden is increasingly falling on the economically productive members in the country

cognitive/perceptual/vernacular regions

describe how people informally organize places in their mind; even though formed by individuals, usually are shared between people because of culturally shared beliefs- for example, in the United States, most people would draw similar boundaries around the "Deep South"; boundaries are imprecise, vague, or variable

relative location

describes a place's location in terms of its relationship to places around it; this type of location descriptors are more common in everyday language

situation

describes a place; relationship to other places around it; for example, New Orleans' location on the Mississippi River delta makes its this in relation to the rest of the United States very important

contagious expansion diffusion

describes diffusion resulting from direct contact with an individual; all infectious diseases, such as AIDS, are spread by contagious diffusion

chain migration

describes migration flows from a common origin to the same destination- family or friends move first and get established within an area, paving the way for more friends and family to follow the same path; as number of migrants from a similar area congregate in one place, services specific to that population (both cultural and social) begin to accrue in that area

demographic transition

describes population growth stabilization as a function of economic development; in stage 1 (preindustrialization), a country is characterized by high birth and death rates and little to no growth; in stage 2, as the country industrializes, birth rates remain high, death rates drop, and population growth is rapid; in stage 3, birth rates begin to drop as a country becomes fully industrialized; stages 4 and 5 describe highly developed countries across the globe where population growth is stable or negative (as is the case in stage 5)

hierarchical expansion diffusion

describes spread first to major nodes and then down a hierarchy; fashion trends typically spread hierarchically by first appearing in major fashion nodes such as London, Milan, and Paris, and then spreading from there; within the major nodes, a phenomenon spread, typically, by contagious diffusion (e.g., a fashion trend spreading within Milan)

spatial association

describes the distribution of two or more features and how they do or do not correspond to one another; powerful concept in spatial analysis as it allows geographers to understand why certain spatial patterns exist; for example, the mapping of type 2 diabetes and socioeconomic status (SES) reveals a strong this: the states with the highest rates of type 2 diabetes also, typically, have the lowest SES

stimulus expansion diffusion

describes the pattern by which a concept is diffused but not in the same form as in original contact; for example, some Native American groups' exposure to written language stimulated them to develop their own written language systems that differed from the language they were exposed to

distance decay

describes the pattern of diminishing likelihood of interaction with a place with increasing distance from that place; for example, the majority of people who shop at a particular grocery store, live or work close by- few customers in that store liver far away from its location; different activities have different this curves- that is, people travel short distances for everyday goods like milk and bread but travel farther to attend special events such as major concerts or professional sporting events

thematic maps

display one or more variables across the specific space such as population variables, voting patterns, or economic welfare; many ways to display this data- some common methods include choropleth maps, proportional symbols map, isoline maps, and cartograms

global growth doubling time

doubling is the amount of time it will take a particular population to double in size; countries with growth rates of 1% take around 70 years to double their population, whereas countries with 2% growth rates only take 35 years to double; when this growth rate is graphed, a J-curve represents the exponential growth; in the last couple of decades, growth rates have declined- population follows more of an S-curve, meaning greater stability

antinatalist population policies

encourage couples to limit the number of children they have; most often, these policies discourage growth through the provision of contraception or abortion or through establishment of specific disincentives, such as steep penalties for couples bearing more children than allowed by the state; China is famous for its one-child population policy from the 1980s in which many drastic measures (e.g., forced sterilization for couples with one child or infanticide of female babies) ensuring decreased population growth

carrying capacity

essentially the number of people an area can sustain without critically straining its resource base; depends on level of technology and determining an appropriate standard of living; advanced technologies can typically sustain many more people than more primitive technologies; on a global scale, if people in developing region begin to consume at a rate comparable to the developed world's consumption rates, the globe has certainly exceeded carrying capacity; if, however, the people of the earth live more modestly, the number of people the earth can sustain will increase

first law of geography/friction of distance

everything is related to everything else, but near things are more closely related than far things; "the this" means that the farther away something is, the less likely someone is to interact with it

visualizations

exist digitally and use sophisticated software to create dynamic computer maps, some of which are three-dimensional or interactive; some allow geographers to investigate features that cannot be seen with the naked eye, while others use models to show how landscapes change over time; in some, people can walk through, or fly over, landscapes

gravity model

first described in the 1850s, it is based on Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation; states that the interaction between places i and j = the population of place i x the population of place j / the distance between places i and j, squared; an important implication is large cities may still have extensive interactions despite being separated by great distances, for example, New York and Los Angeles

Baby Bust

following the Baby Boom, this was a period of time during the 1960s and 1970s when fertility rates in the United States dropped; the drop is attributed to large numbers of women from the Baby Boom generation who sought higher levels or education and more competitive jobs, causing them to marry later in life, and having fewer children than the previous generation

scale

geographic this is a general concept that refers to a conceptual hierarchy of spaces, from small to large, that reflect actual levels of organization in the real world; a characteristic this in human geography, from small to large, is the increase in size from the neighborhood, to the urban area, to the metropolitan area, and, finally, to the region; geographers seek to understand how processes occurring at one this may affect activities at other these

Cairo plan

in 1994, the United Nations, and the U.N. International Conference on Population and Development, in Cairo, endorsed a strategy to stabilize global population at 7.27 billion no later than 2015; instead of focusing on top-down programs that limited reproduction in certain regions of the world, policies focused on giving women greater social and economic control of their lives; many argue that global drops in fertility are a result of women, particularly in developing regions, assuming greater control over their economic and reproductive lives

"cornucopians"

in the 1980s, when many argued that stricter population controls needed to be placed on countries with high TFR in order to stimulate development, many economies argued that increasing populations stimulate rather than hinder economic development; they believe that with increasing populations come increasing opportunities for innovation; current global totals have not proven to have the dire consequences predicted by Malthus and his followers- even though many across the globe die of starvation on a daily basis, this is more an issue of food distribution than food availability

conformal projection

in these, the shapes of small areas are preserved; in many of these, such as the Mercator Projection, compass direction is preserved making them useful for navigation purposes

guest workers

individuals who migrate temporarily to take advantage of job opportunities in other countries; send a significant portion of their pay, called remittances, back home to support friends and family; in some countries, remittances are a significant source of income for the national economy

longitude

lines of this, or meridians, originate at the prime meridian, which passes through Greenwich, England, and ends at the International Date Line; all lines of these meet at the poles; together with its counterpart, they allow for precise determination of location on the surface of the earth

topographic map showing elevation contours

map shows lines for elevation

isoline maps

maps that use lines to represent quantities of equal value; most common example is a topographic map, where each line represents a constant elevation; lines spaced close together indicate a rapidly changing value, whereas lines far apart indicate little change over space; isolines can be used to show other values that vary continuously over space such as temperature or population density

infant mortality

number of deaths during the first year of life per thousand live births; tends to be much higher n developing regions as it is strongly related to a country's access to health care services; overall, rates have decreased significantly over the last fifty years

crude death rate (CDR)

number of deaths in a country per 1,000 people; it is "crude" because it does not take into account the age structure of a population; for example, several countries in Western Europe have relatively high these because of a high proportion of individuals in old-age cohorts

preference map of the United States

shows that California and the coasts have the highest preference in the United States (?)

crude birth rate (CBR)

number of live births in a single year for every 1,000 people in a population; they tend to be highest in least developed regions where both number of women at or near reproducing age and fertility rates are high; places with high ones tend to be countries where women's access to education is low; places with high ones tend to have a high portion of their population engaged in agriculture- more children equal more laborers

arithmetic density

number of people in a given unit of area; does not take into account physiographic differences in that area

region

one of the fundamental units of analysis in human geography; (this)alizing allows geographers to group pieces of the earth's surface together according to certain similarities; do not exist as well-defined units in the landscape- instead, they are conceptual constructions that geographers use for convenience and comparison

sense of place

people's attitude or feelings of attachment (positive or negative) toward a particular locale; this is developed as a result of experiences and memories associated with a particular location

maps

pictorial models of reality that use symbols to convey meaning; power comes in their ability to make something nonspatial (e.g., population rates), spatial, thereby facilitating the perception of spatial relationships; the only way to see the entire earth's surface at once

Azimuthal projections

planar projections (meaning they are formed when a flat piece of paper is placed on top of the globe and a light source projects the surrounding areas onto the map; typically, the North Pole or the South Pole is oriented at the center of the map, giving an impression of looking up or down at teh earth

administrative regions

politically determined, boundaries are exact; are hierarchical or nested; for example, in the United States (a this), states exist within the country, counties exist within the states, and census tracts exist within counties

global refugee patterns

post 9/11 security issues have led many countries of the world, particularly Western Europe and North America, to tighten borders to individuals seeking asylum; in many African countries, borders are open to refugees such that countries in which refugees are fleeing from also host significant refugee populations; for example, several million refugees have fled Sudan as a result of civil war, but Sudan also hosts numerous refugees from neighboring countries

demographic accounting equation

predicts population change within a particular area as a function of natural increase/ decrease and in/out migration (big long formula)

Mercator projection

preserves accurate compass directions but distorts area of landmasses relative to each other; landmasses become increasingly distorted, or large in size, at high latitude near the North and South Poles; originally created by projecting the earth's features onto a cylinder (a cylindrical projection), which results in lines of latitude becoming parallel rather than intersecting, leading to tremendous distortion at the poles

remote sensing

process of capturing images from earth's surface from airborne platforms such as satellites or airplanes; images can be digital or analog photographs and data can be collected from several bands of the electromagnetic spectrum

resolution

refers to a map's smallest discernable nit; basically it is the smallest thing visible on a map; if an object has to be 330 feet (100 meters) long in order to show up on a map, then that map's resolution is 330 feet (100 meters)

simplification

refers to the level of detail portrayed on a map; if a cartographer designs a map of the entire United States, he or she would probably not include minute details such as locations of towns smaller than fifty thousand people; level of this depends on the purpose of the map and the size of the area the map is portraying

site

refers to the physical and cultural features of a place, independent of other places around it; for example, New York's this is poor: its location is below sea level, meaning big rain events lead to significant problems

projection

refers to the process by which the three-dimensional surface of earth is transferred to a two-dimensional map; traditionally, maps were made by placing a light source (e.g., a candle or bulb) inside of a translucent globe and then projecting the globe's features onto another shape (usually a piece of paper) surrounding it; currently produced through numerous different, complicated, mathematical equations

aggregation

refers to the size of the unit under investigation such as cities, counties, or countries; like simplification, completely depends on the purpose of the map; level also depends on the data geographers have access to; if a geographer investigates population density with data at the state level, his or her map will dramatically differ from a geographer who has his density data at the county level

accessibility

relative ease with which you, goods, and/or ideas can reach a destination; determined by a place's connectivity- the more means there are for interacting with a place, the higher its this

environmental geography

results from the intersection of human and physical geography; (this)ers, or geographers who study human environment relationships (HER), come from almost every academic discipline and frequently occupy prominent positions at the forefront of debates regarding anthropogenic, or human-induced, environmental change, conservation planing, and sustainability; concerned with anything from the history of a given landscape and the effects of pollution on impoverished neighborhoods, to the creation of nature reserves for endangered species

latitude

run parallel to one another and are often called parallels; they originate at the equator and terminate at the poles; together with its counterpart, they allow for precise determination of location on the surface of the earth

distance decay curve

says that when distance is small, interaction is more intense and when distance is large, interaction is less intense

preference maps

show people's ideas about environmental, social, or economic quality of life in various places; in general, most Americans rate their home state highly, and most show preference for coastal areas, especially California and the East Coast

proportional symbols map

size of the chosen symbol (e.g., circle, triangle, or flow line) indicates relative magnitude of some value for a given geographic region; flow lines are often used to show movement of goods or people over space- lines get relatively thinner and thicker as values shrink or expand

barriers to diffusion

something that inhibits a phenomenon from spreading across space; physical barriers are objects in the environment that prohibit interaction (include features like mountain ranges, highways when interaction occurs on foot, rivers, and so on); sociocultural factors prohibit diffusion when a person's beliefs, culture, or place in society prohibit interaction with certain people or places; psychological barriers are generally fear or ignorance that keep individuals from interaction with certain people or places and thereby prohibit the spread of a particular phenomenon

formal regions

sometimes called thematic regions because they are defined by one or more variables or themes; group strength varies throughout the region; some places represent the theme defining the region more strongly than others; because of varying membership strength, boundaries are imprecise of vague- a clear line does not separate one area from another and change between regions tends to be gradual ; examples include climate regions, language, religion, or any other theme that does not correspond to administrative boundaries

systematic geography

study of the earth's integrated systems as a whole, instead of focusing on particular processes in a single place; this approach allows geographers to apply their knowledge of a specific spatial process broadly beyond unique places to other areas across the globe

demographic momentum

tendency of a population to continue to grow in spite of stringent population policies or rapid fertility decline because of the large number of individuals in their childbearing years; in countries that implement policies encouraging or enforcing replacement-level fertility rates, it takes several generations before stable growth is achieved because of this

density

the amount of a particular feature within a given area; it is not the same thing as dense, which implies a cluster; for example population this is the number of people within a given area

network

the areal pattern of connections between places; some describe literal connections between places such as connections between subway stops on a metro map; however, some are less literal- for example, many emerging Internet sites such as Facebook are social networks, describing all the links between a group of "friends"

cartography

the art and science of making maps; the goal of this-ers is to develop maps that accurately and elegantly convey spatial information

functional regions

the boundaries are drawn around an interaction region: every this has a node that people interact with; the spatial pattern of that interaction defines the region; for example, commuters to a particular city, newspaper circulation, or branch operations with a major bank

human geography

the field of geography that looks at variations in human behavior over space; (this)ers look at human characteristics including population, economy, agriculture, urbanization, culture, political systems, and how those characteristics vary depending on where you are on the earth's surface; (this)ers also look at the complicated relationship between humans and their environments

earth's graticule

the grid used in the geographic coordinate system; the network of lines of latitude and longitude that make up a coordinate system

time-distance decay

the idea that the longer it takes for something to spread or move over space, the less likelihood of interaction with or spread of that phenomena; essentially description of time as a barrier to spatial diffusion

time-space convergence

the idea that with increasing transportation and communication technology, absolute distance between certain places, is, in effect, shrinking; for example, increased transportation technology has "shrunk" the distance between New York City and London- it used to take days, even weeks, to cross the Atlantic by boat, and it now takes only half a day; increased communications technology allows places to communicate instantaneously with each other, which, in effect, completely negates distance's effect on interaction (via voice or text communication)

internal migration history of the United States

the most significant ones can be characterized in 3 waves: wave 1- beginning with colonization, a movement of the population westward and movement from rural to urban areas as places become increasingly industrialized; wave 2- from the early 1940s through the 1970s, a massive movement of African Americans from the rural south to cities in the South, North, and West; wave 3- post WWII to the present day, a movement to the sun belt states (the 15 states from North Carolina to Southern California and all states south of that line)

landscape

the observable elements of a particular space; they embody the historic relationship between a person or culture and their natural environment- for example, "reading the cultural this" can provide powerful evidence of a society's character and experiences

absolute location

the precise location of any object or place on the earth's surface as determined by a standard grid or coordinate system; the most common system used to determine it is latitude and longitude

ecumene

the proportion of the earth's surface that is inhabited by humans

regional geography

the study of regions; regions vary in size- a region may be an entire continent (for example, North America, or a smaller area such as southern Florida); (this)ers, no matter the size of the region under study, investigate the unique characteristics, patterns, and processes existent within that place

diffusion

the ways in which phenomena, such as technological innovations, cultural trends, or outbreaks of disease, travel over space; two main processes spread phenomena over space: expansion this and relocation this; in relocation this, physical movement leads to spread, usually as a result of migration, and number of adopters is relatively small; with expansion this, interaction leads to spread, and number of adopters grows rapidly before stabilizing

cartograms

transform space so that the political unit, such as a state or country, with the greatest value for some type of data is represented by the largest relative area and all other polygons are represented proportionally to that largest polygon; can be powerful for illustrating comparative patterns- for ex: a this of electoral votes in the United States would make some of the larger states (e.g., Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas) very small, whereas some smaller states with more electoral votes would expand showing a more accurate picture of each state's influence on the political process

choropleth maps

use colors or tonal shadings to represent categories of data for given geographical areas; countries, states, or counties most commonly use polygons; a map of population density by county in the United States might use five shades of green to classify density values

dot density maps

use points to represent particular values; for example, cropland harvested where each dot represents 1,000 bushels of corn; value comes from the ability to facilitate perception of spatial pattern- in example of corn cropland harvested, an obvious spatial pattern would emerge in the Midwest; the disadvantage is that data that do not meet the threshold (e.g., only 999 bushels of corn harvested in a particular area) do not appear on the map

reference maps

used to navigate between places and include topographic map, atlases, road maps, and other navigational maps

relative distance

when less precise but often meaningful measures are used to describe separation between two points; the most common measure of this is time, or how long it takes to get from point A to point B, which is typically relative to a person's mode of transportation

concentration

when spatial distribution of objects or features appear in close proximity to one another, they are said to be (this)ed; this is also called a cluster

channelized migration

with these streams, the flows between a particular origin and destination are larger than would normally be the case, but they are not the result of family or kinship ties as is the case with chain migration; for example, this occurs between Texas and California- in other words, a significantly larger number of people move from Texas to California and vice versa than migration models predict