AP Human Geography Unit 5
Neolithic Revolution
(10,000 - 8,000 BCE) The development of agriculture and the domestication of animals as a food source. This led to the development of permanent settlements and the start of civilization.
Pastoral nomadism
A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals.
Intensive agriculture
A form of subsistence agriculture in which farmers must expend a relatively large amount of effort to produce the maximum feasible yield from a parcel of land.
Biotechnology
A form of technology that uses living organisms, usually genes, to modify products, to make or modify plants and animals, or to develop other microorganisms for specific purposes.
Dispersed settlement pattern
A rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms rather than clustered villages.
Primogeniture
A system of inheritance in which the eldest son in a family received all of his father's land.
Metes and bounds
A term used in describing the boundary lines of land, setting forth all the boundary lines together with their terminal points and angles. Metes (length or measurements) and Bounds (boundaries) description is often used when a great deal of accuracy is required.
Green Revolution
Agricultural revolution that increased production through improved seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation; helped to support rising Asian populations.
Subsistence agriculture
Agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer's family
Rectangular survey system
Also called the Public Land Survey, the system was used by the US Land Office Survey to parcel land west of the Appalachian Mountains. The system divides land into a series of rectangular parcels.
Extensive agriculture
An agricultural system characterized by low inputs of labor per unit land area.
Mediterranean agriculture
An agricultural system practiced in the Mediterranean-style climates of Western Europe, California, and portions of Chile and Australia, in which diverse specialty crops such as grapes, avocados,
Shifting cultivation (swidden agriculture)
An area of land cleared for cultivation by slashing and burning vegetation.
Primary sector
Businesses or people working to extract raw materials from the earth or sea. Examples of industries in the primary sector include fishing, farming and mining.
Second Agricultural Revolution
Coincided with the Industrial Revolution in England and a higher population growth rate, and saw the development of improved sanitation, storage, and fertilization techniques, allowing for greater food output.
Agribusiness
Commercial agriculture characterized by integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually through ownership by large corporations.
Truck Farming
Commercial gardening and fruit farming, so named because truck was a Middle English word meaning batering or the exchange of commodities.
Horticulture
Cultivation of crops carried out with simple hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes.
Agricultural hearths
Farming practices diffused across the surface of the earth.
Pampas
Grasslands of Argentina and Uruguay
Third Agricultural Revolution
It is still in progress. It is based on new, high-yielding strains of grains and other crops developed in laboratories using modern techniques of genetic engineering
Enclosure
Large companies bought out little farms putting farmers out of work
Von Thunen's Model
Model which shows the location of agriculture in regard to a comercial economy that is similar to the concentric model
Seed agriculture
Reproduction of plants through annual introduction of seeds, which result from sexual fertilization.
Wet (lowland) rice
Rice planted on dryland in a nursery and then moved to a deliberately flooded field to promote growth
Quaternary sector
Service sector industries concerned with the collection, processing, and manipulation of information and capital. Examples include finance, administration, insurance, and legal services.
Job specialization
The degree to which the overall task of the organization is broken down and divided into smaller component parts
Biodiversity
The diversity of plant and animal life in a particular habitat (or in the world as a whole)
Secondary sector
The portion of the economy concerned with manufacturing useful products through processing, transforming, and assembling raw materials.
Tertiary sector
The portion of the economy concerned with transportation, communications, and utilities, sometimes extended to the provision of all goods and services to people in exchange for payment.
Labor-intensive agriculture
Type of agriculture that requires large levels of manual labor to be successful.
Extensive subsistence agriculture
Using a large amount of land to farm food for the farmer's family to eat.
Patriarchal system
When men had the power in the family, the economy, and the government
Winter wheat area, spring wheat area, "world breadbasket"
Winter: wheat planted in the fall and harvested in the early summer. Spring: Wheat planted in the spring and harvested in the late summer
Nucleated settlement pattern
a settlement clustered around a central point, such as a village green or church.
Postindustrial societies
a society whose economic system is engaged primarily in the processing and control of information
Mixed crop and livestock farming
both animal and crops are farmed in the same area, it's helpful because farmers could distribute the workload more evenly through the year
Seed drill
created by Jethro Tull, it allowed farmers to sow seeds in well-spaced rows at specific depths; this boosted crop yields
Long-lot survey system
distinct regional approach to land surveying found in the Canadian Maritimes, parts of Quebec, Louisiana, and Texas whereby land is divided into narrow parcels stretching back from rivers, roads, or canals
Vegetative planting
reproduction of plants by direct cloning from existing plants
Intensive subsistence agriculture
term applied to subsistence agriculture that means that farmers must work more intensively to subsist on a parcel of land
Milkshed
the area surrounding a city from which milk is supplied