GEO-200
Hindutva
"Hinduness" as expressed through Hindu nationalism, Hindu heritage, and/or Hindu patriotism. The cornerstone of a fundamentalist movement that has been gaining strength since the late twentieth century that seeks to remake India as a society dominated by Hindu principles. It has been the guiding agenda of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has emerged a powerful force in national politics and in big States like Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh.
Human Development Index
A UN index that is a composite measure of life expectancy, education, and income per capita. It is used to rank countries within a four-level classification under this name.
Exclave
A bounded (non-island) piece of territory that is part of a particular state but lies separated from it by the territory of another state.
Hybrid warfare
A calculated mix of tactics to achieve aggressive geopolitical objectives while avoiding direct (large-scale) war. The tactics include military, diplomatic, economic, and intelligence means.
Regional growth pole
A center of growth (an existing town/city or planned economic center) intended to spur development in the wider region.
Node
A center that functions as a point of connectivity within a regional network or system. All urban settlements possess this function, and the higher the position of a settlement in its urban system or hierarchy, the greater its nodality.
Distribution center-
A centralized focus of economic activity specializing in the distribution of goods, situated as a major hub on its regional transportation network. Atlanta, Georgia, with its outstanding highway, rail, and air-freight connections to the surrounding southeastern United States, is a classic example.
Migration
A change in residence intended to be permanent.
Migration-
A change in residence intended to be permanent.
Fragmented modernization
A checkerboard-like spatial pattern of modernization in an emerging-market economy wherein a few localized regions of a country experience most of the development while the rest are largely unaffected.
Region
A commonly used term and a geographic concept of paramount importance. An area on the Earth's surface marked by specific criteria, which are discussed in the Introduction.
Federation-
A country adhering to a political framework wherein a central government represents the various subnational entities within a nation-state where they have common interests—defense, foreign affairs, and the like—yet allows these various entities to retain their own identities and to have their own laws, policies, and customs in certain spheres.
Buffer state
A country or set of countries separating ideological or political adversaries. In southern Asia, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bhutan were parts of a buffer zone set up between British and Russian-Chinese imperial spheres. Thailand was a buffer state between British and French colonial domains in mainland Southeast Asia.
Failed state
A country whose institutions have collapsed and in which anarchy prevails.
Nation-state
A country whose population possesses a substantial degree of cultural homogeneity and unity. The ideal form to which most nations and states aspire—a political unit wherein the territorial state coincides with the area settled by a certain national group or people.
Primate city
A country's largest city—ranking atop its urban hierarchy—most expressive of the national culture and usually (but not in every case) the capital city as well.
Sex ratio
A demographic indicator showing the ratio of males to females in a given population.
Jihad
A doctrine within Islam. Commonly translated as holy war, it entails a personal or collective struggle on the part of Muslims to live up to the religious standards prescribed by the Quran (Koran).
Pacific Rim-
A far-flung group of countries and components of countries (extending clockwise on the map from New Zealand to Chile) sharing the following criteria: they face the Pacific Ocean; they exhibit relatively high levels of economic development, industrialization, and urbanization; their imports and exports mainly move across Pacific waters.
Geographic information system (GIS)
A form of spatial analysis that integrates computer hardware, mapping software, and such specialized tools as models and algorithms. A versatile technique that is constantly being expanded in its applications (e.g., digital terrain mapping).
Environmental determinism
A geographic school of thought, popular in the first quarter of the twentieth century, that maintains the physical environment determines human behavior and/or social outcomes.
Local functional specialization
A hallmark of Europe's economic geography that later spread to many other parts of the world, whereby particular people in particular places concentrate on the production of particular goods and services.
Urban system-
A hierarchical network or grouping of urban areas within a finite geographic area, such as a country.
Foreign direct investment
A key indicator of the success of an emerging market economy, whose growth is accelerated by the infusion of foreign funds to supplement domestic sources of investment capital.
World-city-
A large city with particularly significant international (economic) linkages that also has a high ranking in the global urban system. Leading world-cities include London, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Paris.
Plantation
A large estate owned by an individual, family, or corporation and organized to produce a cash crop. Almost all plantations were established within the tropics; in recent decades, many have been divided into smaller holdings or reorganized as cooperatives.
Nongovernmental organization (NGO)
A legitimate organization that operates independently from any form of government and does not function as a for-profit business. Mostly seeks to improve social conditions, but is not affiliated with political organizations.
Epidemic
A local or regional outbreak of a disease.
Break-of-bulk
A location along a transport route where goods must be transferred from one carrier to another. In a port, the cargoes of oceangoing ships are unloaded and put on trains, trucks, or perhaps smaller river boats for inland distribution. An entrepôt.
Hukou system
A long-standing Chinese system whereby all inhabitants must obtain and carry with them residency permits that indicate where an individual is from and where they may exercise particular rights such as education, health care, housing, and the like.
Nine-Dashed-Line map
A map used by Chinese authorities to indicate Chinese claims to the South China Sea.
Gini Index
A measure of inequality within a given area, ranging from 0 to 100. A value of 0 indicates that income is equally distributed across an area's population; a value of 100 indicates that all income is concentrated in the hands of a single recipient.
Biodiversity hot spot
A much higher than usual, world-class geographic concentration of natural plant and/or animal species. Tropical rainforest environments have dominated, but their recent ravaging by deforestation has had catastrophic results.
Land bridge
A narrow isthmian link between two large landmasses. They are temporary features—at least when measured in geologic time—subject to appearance and disappearance as the land or sea level rises and falls.
Subtropical Convergence
A narrow marine transition zone, girdling the globe at approximately latitude 40°S, that marks the equatorward limit of the frigid Southern Ocean and the poleward limits of the warmer Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans to the north.
Choke point
A narrowing of an international waterway causing marine-traffic congestion, requiring reduced speeds and/or sharp turns, and increasing the risk of collision as well as vulnerability to attack. When the waterway narrows to a distance of less than 38 kilometers (24 mi), this necessitates the drawing of a median-line (maritime) boundary.
Unitary state system
A nation-state that has a centralized government and administration that exercises power equally over all parts of the state.
Stateless nation
A national group that aspires to become a an independent state but lacks the territorial means to do so.
Neoliberalism
A national or regional development strategy based on the privatization of state-run companies, lowering of international trade tariffs, reduction of government subsidies, cutting of corporate taxes, and overall deregulation of business activity.
Externality effect
A negative consequence of an action, which countries try to minimize. Ethiopia's new dam on the Blue Nile is deliberately situated just upstream from the Sudan border in order to minimize reduced water flow and silt entrapment within Ethiopian territory.
El Niño
A periodic, abnormal warming of the sea surface in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Disturbs weather patterns across much of the world, especially in northwestern and northeastern South America.
Entrepôt
A place, usually a port city, where goods are imported, stored, and transshipped; a break-of-bulk point.
Technopole-
A planned techno-industrial complex (such as California's Silicon Valley) that innovates, promotes, and manufactures the products of the postindustrial information economy.
Irredentism
A policy of cultural extension and potential political expansion by a state aimed at a community of its nationals living in a neighboring state.
State
A politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign government and is recognized by a significant portion of the international community. A state must also contain a permanent resident population, an organized economy, and a functioning internal circulation system.
Compact states
A politico-geographical term to describe a state that possesses a roughly circular, oval, or rectangular territory in which the distance from the geometric center to any point on the boundary exhibits little variance.
Liberation theology
A powerful religious movement that arose in South America during the 1950s, and subsequently gained followers throughout the global periphery. At its heart is a belief system, based on a blend of Christian faith and socialist thinking, that interprets the teachings of Christ as a quest to liberate the impoverished masses from oppression.
Sharing economy (or Gig economy)-
A recent development in urban economies based on the digital revolution that allows for sharing of heretofore private resources ranging from cars and scooters to overnight accommodation, from work space to power tools.
Functional region
A region marked less by its sameness than by its dynamic internal structure; because it usually focuses on a central node, also called nodal region or focal region.
Physiographic region-
A region within which there prevails substantial natural-landscape homogeneity, expressed by a certain degree of uniformity in surface relief, climate, vegetation, and soils.
Digital elevation model
A representation of a unit of terrain obtained from remote sensing imagery.
Atoll
A ring-like coral reef surrounding an empty lagoon that probably formed around the rim of a now-completely-eroded volcanic cone standing on the seafloor. They are common in certain tropical areas of the Pacific Ocean where they are classified among that realm's low islands.
Tsunami
A seismic (earthquake-generated) sea wave that can attain gigantic proportions and cause coastal devastation. The tsunami of December 26, 2004, centered in the Indian Ocean near the Indonesian island of Sumatera (Sumatra), produced the first great natural disaster of the twenty-first century. Our new century's second major tsunami disaster occurred along the coast of Japan's northeastern Honshu Island on March 11, 2011.
Arab Spring
A series of anti-government, pro-democracy, protests and uprisings, both peaceful and violent, that spread across the realm of North Africa and Southwest Asia (NASWA) in the early 2010s.
Archipelago
A set of islands grouped closely together, usually elongated into a chain.
Gross National Happiness Index
A set of measures of well-being designed initially by the country of Bhutan in 1972, giving more or less equal weight to economic and social indicators of well-being (e.g., education or environmental conditions).
Cultural pluralism
A society in which two or more population groups, each practicing its own culture, live adjacent to one another without mixing inside a single state.
Multilingualism
A society marked by a mosaic of local languages. Constitutes a centrifugal force because it impedes communication within the larger population. Often a lingua franca is used as a "common language," as in many countries of Subsaharan Africa.
Microstate
A sovereign state that contains a minuscule land area and population. They do not have the attributes of "complete" states, but are on the map as tiny yet independent entities nonetheless.
European state model
A state consisting of a legally defined territory inhabited by a population governed from a capital city by a representative government.
Fragmented states
A state whose territory consists of several separated parts, not a contiguous whole. The individual parts may be isolated from each other by the land area of other states or by international waters.
Elongated states
A state whose territory is decidedly long and narrow in that its length is at least six times greater than its average width.
Dynasty
A succession of Chinese rulers that came from the same line of male descent, sometimes enduring for centuries. Dynastic rule in China lasted for thousands of years, only coming to an end in 1911.
Eurasian Customs Union
A supranational organization created by Russia in 2010 to maintain economic ties with the friendliest countries in the Near Abroad. The three charter members (Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan) were joined in 2015 by the two smaller countries of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
State capture
A systematic form of political corruption whereby certain private interest groups significantly influence (capture) government decision-making through bribery and other means.
Centrifugal forces
A term employed to designate forces that tend to divide a country—such as internal religious, linguistic, ethnic, or ideological differences.
BRICs
Acronym for the four biggest emerging national markets in the world today—Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
Transition zone
An area of spatial change where the peripheries of two adjacent realms or regions join; marked by a gradual shift (rather than a sharp break) in the characteristics that distinguish these neighboring geographic entities from one another.
Transition zone-
An area of spatial change where the peripheries of two adjacent realms or regions join; marked by a gradual shift (rather than a sharp break) in the characteristics that distinguish these neighboring geographic entities from one another.
Urbanization
A term with a variety of connotations. The proportion of a country's population living in urban places is its level of urbanization. The process of urbanization involves the movement to, and the clustering of, people in towns and cities—a major force in every geographic realm today. Another kind of urbanization occurs when an expanding city absorbs rural countryside and transforms it into suburbs; in the case of cities in disadvantaged countries, this also generates peripheral shantytowns.
Formal region
A type of region marked by a certain degree of homogeneity in one or more phenomena; also called uniform region or homogeneous region.
Supranationalism
A venture involving three or more states—political, economic, and/or cultural cooperation to promote shared objectives.
Monocentric geographic realm
A world geographic realm dominated—territorially and/or demographically—by a single country. Russia in Russia/Central Asia is a prime example; others are the United States (North America), India (South Asia), and China (East Asia).
Cash economy
An economic system in which all transactions are made in cash.
Caliphate
An imperial-scale Islamic government led by a caliph, considered a direct successor to the Prophet Muhammad, who rules and exerts moral authority over Muslims worldwide.
Growth Triangle
An increasingly popular economic development concept along the western Pacific Rim, especially in Southeast Asia. It involves the linking of production in growth centers of three countries to achieve benefits for all.
City-state
An independent political entity consisting of a single city with (and sometimes without) an immediate hinterland.
Dependency ratio
An indicator of the pressure on a country's workers, the age-population ratio of (dependent) people who are not in the labor force to those (productive) people who are in the labor force.
Indigenous
Aboriginal or native; an example would be the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas.
Megacity region
An unusually large urban region in China, territorially and population-wise, comprised of multiple coalescing metropolitan areas, connected through newly developed transportation infrastructures and with internal functional connections (e.g., the Pearl River Delta).
Growth-pole concept
An urban center with a number of attributes that, if augmented by investment support, will stimulate regional economic development in its hinterland.
Polycentric urban region-
An urban region with multiple central cities and/or first-order suburban activity nodes.
Informal sector
Dominated by unlicensed sellers of homemade goods and services, the primitive form of capitalism found in many developing countries that takes place beyond the control of government. The complement to a country's formal economic sector.
Forward capital
Capital city positioned in actually or potentially contested territory, usually near an international border; it confirms the state's determination to maintain its presence in the area of contention.
Geospatial data
Data pertaining to a particular location on or near the Earth's surface.
Russification
Demographic resettlement policies pursued by the central planners of the Soviet Empire (1922-1991), whereby ethnic Russians were encouraged to emigrate from the Russian Republic to the 14 non-Russian republics of the USSR.
Mestizo
Derived from the Latin word for mixed, refers to a person of mixed European (white) and Amerindian ancestry.
Demographic transition
Multi-stage model, based on western Europe's experience, of changes in population growth exhibited by countries undergoing industrialization. High birth rates and death rates are followed by plunging death rates, producing a huge net population gain; birth and death rates then converge at a low overall level.
"Global village"
It is the world viewed as a community in which distance and isolation have been dramatically reduced by electronic media (such as television and the Internet). Also, it means all parts of the world as they are being brought together by the internet and other electronic communication interconnections. Other forms of communication such as Skype allows easier communication and connection with others, especially in other countries.
Nation
Legally a term encompassing all the citizens of a state, it also has other connotations. Most definitions now tend to refer to a group of tightly knit people possessing bonds of language, ethnicity, religion, and other shared cultural attributes. Such homogeneity actually prevails within very few states.
Asylum
Legally protected residency status; usually granted by a host country to immigrants fleeing political oppression in their former homeland.
Hinterland
Literally "country behind," a term that applies to a surrounding area served by an urban center. That center is the focus of goods and services produced for its hinterland and is its dominant urban influence as well.
Hacienda
Literally, a large estate in a Spanish-speaking country. Sometimes equated with the plantation, but there are important differences between these two types of agricultural enterprise.
Apartheid
Literally, apartness. The Afrikaans term for South Africa's pre-1994 policies of racial separation, a system that produced highly segregated socio-geographical patterns.
First Nations-
Name given Canada's indigenous peoples of American descent, whose U.S. counterparts are called Native Americans.
Anthropogenic
Environmental impacts emanating from human activities, particularly the production of pollutants associated with atmospheric warming.
Borderland-
General term for a linear zone that parallels a political boundary. The most dynamic of these areas, such as those lining the U.S.-Mexico border, are marked by significant cultural and economic interaction across the boundary that separates them.
Conurbation
General term used to identify a large multimetropolitan complex formed by the coalescence of two or more major urban areas.
Sinicization
Giving a Chinese cultural imprint; Chinese acculturation.
Culture hearth
Heartland, source area, or innovation center; place of origin of a major culture.
Altiplano
High-elevation plateau, basin, or valley between even higher mountain ranges, especially in the Andes of South America.
"Hybrid warfare"
It is a military strategy which employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare and cyberwarfare with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomacy, lawfare and foreign electoral intervention.
Intercontinental ballistic missile
It is a missile with a minimum range of 5,500 kilometres (3,400 mi) primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads).
Rising sea level
It is an increase in the level of the world's oceans due to the effects of global warming. With the average year-round global temperatures rising, however, ice caps and glaciers are experiencing a disproportionate amount of melting at an accelerated rate.
Special Economic Zone (SEZ)
Manufacturing and export center in China, created after 1980 to attract foreign investment and technology transfers. Seven SEZs—all located on China's Pacific coast—currently operate: Shenzhen, adjacent to Hong Kong; Zhuhai; Shantou; Xiamen; Hainan Island, in the far south; Pudong, across the river from Shanghai; and Binhai New Area, next to the port of Tianjin.
Aboriginal population
Native or aboriginal peoples; often used to designate the inhabitants of areas that were conquered and subsequently colonized by the imperial powers of Europe.
Golden Triangle
Opium-producing area encompassing northwestern Laos, northernmost Thailand, and east-central Myanmar's Shan State.
Dependencia theory
Originating in South America during the 1960s, it was a new way of thinking about economic development and underdevelopment that explained the persistent poverty of certain countries in terms of their unequal relations with other (i.e., rich) countries.
Permafrost
Permanently frozen water in the near-surface soil and bedrock of cold environments, producing the effect of completely frozen ground. Surface can thaw during brief warm season.
Communal tension
Persistent stress among a country's sociocultural groups that can often erupt into communal violence, particularly in India.
Neoliberal policies
Policies adhering to an ideology or development strategy that advocates the privatization of state-run companies, lowering of international trade tariffs, reduction of government subsidies, cutting of corporate taxes, and overall deregulation of business activity.
Geopolitics
Political relations among states or regions that are strongly influenced by their geographical setting, including proximity, accessibility, sovereign boundaries, natural resources, population distribution, and the like.
Deindustrialization-
Process by which companies relocate manufacturing jobs to other regions or countries with cheaper labor, leaving the newly-deindustrialized region to convert to a service economy while struggling with the accompanying effects of increased unemployment and meeting the retraining needs of its workforce.
High-value-added goods
Products of improved net worth.
High-speed rail (HSR)
Railway infrastructure for high-speed passenger trains, typically exceeding maximum speeds of 200km (125m) per hour.
Urban primacy
Refers to a country's largest city—ranking atop its urban hierarchy—most expressive of the national culture and usually (but not in every case) the capital city as well.
Endemic
Refers to a disease in a host population that affects many people in a kind of equilibrium without causing rapid and widespread deaths.
Relocation diffusion
Sequential diffusion process in which the items being diffused are transmitted by their carrier agents as they relocate to new areas. The most common form of relocation diffusion involves the spreading of innovations by a migrating population.
Favela
Shantytown on the outskirts or even well within an urban area in Brazil.
Shi'ite Islam
The smaller of the two main Islamic sects, comprising about 10 percent of Muslims overall, but in the majority in both Iran and Iraq. The origin of Shi'ism dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad, whose adherents believe that only a blood relative of Muhammad (his cousin) could be considered his legitimate successor.
Islamic Frontier
The southern border of the African Transition Zone that marks the religious frontier of the Muslim faith in its southward penetration of Subsaharan Africa.
Residential geography-
The spatial distribution of a residential population. The term is most often used by urban geographers to describe the clustering of various social groups into the neighborhoods that form the residential fabric of cities and suburbs.
Electoral geography-
The spatial distribution of political preferences as expressed in voting behavior for political parties and/or candidates.
Spatial diffusion
The spatial spreading or dissemination of a culture element (such as a technological innovation) or some other phenomenon (e.g., a disease outbreak).
Expansion diffusion
The spreading of an innovation or an idea through a fixed population in such a way that the number of those adopting it grows continuously larger, resulting in an expanding area of dissemination.
Centrality
The strength of an urban center in its capacity to attract producers and consumers to its facilities; a city's "reach" into the surrounding region.
Sharia law
The strict criminal code based in Islamic law that prescribes corporal punishment, amputations, stonings, and lashings for both major and minor offenses. Its occurrence today is associated with the spread of religious revivalism in Muslim societies.
Caste system
The strict social stratification and residential segregation of people—specifically in India's Hindu society—on the basis of ancestry and occupation.
Biogeography
The study of flora (plant life) and fauna (animal life) in spatial perspective.
Medical geography
The study of health and disease within a geographic context and from a spatial perspective. Among other things, this geographic field examines the sources, diffusion routes, and distributions of diseases.
Boreal forest-
The subarctic, mostly coniferous snowforest that blankets Canada south of the tundra that lines the Arctic shore; known as the taiga in Russia.
Taiga
The subarctic, mostly coniferous snowforest that blankets northern Russia and Canada south of the tundra that lines the Arctic shore. Known as the boreal forest in North America.
Business process outsourcing
The subcontracting of specific business tasks, such as subscriptions or payroll, to another, specialized, company (sometimes abroad), at lower cost.
Partition
The subdivision of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan at the end of colonial rule on August 15, 1947.
Green Revolution
The successful late-twentieth-century development of higher-yield, fast-growing varieties of rice and other cereals in certain developing countries.
Industrial Revolution
The term applied to the social and economic changes in agriculture, commerce, and especially manufacturing and urbanization that resulted from technological innovations and greater specialization in late-eighteenth-century Europe.
Maquiladoras
The term given to modern industrial plants in Mexico's U.S. border zone. These foreign-owned factories assemble imported components and/or raw materials, and then export finished manufactures, mainly to the United States. Import duties are disappearing under NAFTA, bringing jobs to Mexico and the advantages of low wage rates to the foreign entrepreneurs.
Taliban
The term means "students" or "seekers of religion." Specifically, refers to the Islamist militia group that emerged from madrassas in Pakistan and ruled neighboring Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001; it has been trying to regain control of that country in its continuing conflict with U.S.-led NATO troops. Taliban rule, in adherence with an extremist interpretation of Sharia law, was marked by one of the most virulent forms of militant Islam ever seen.
Schengen Area
The territory constituted by most of Europe's countries within which people are free to cross international boundaries without formal border checks. Certain EU members do not fully participate: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland, and Romania. Four non-EU countries do participate: Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and the microstate of Liechtenstein. Another non-participant is the United Kingdom, which voted to leave the EU in 2016.
Al Qaeda
The terrorist organization that evolved into an expanding global network under the directorship of Osama bin Laden between the mid-1990s and his elimination by the U.S. in 2011. It sought to coordinate the efforts of once loosely allied Muslim revolutionary movements, and unleash a jihad aimed at what it perceived to be Islam's enemies in the West.
Hydraulic civilization theory
The theory that cities that managed to control irrigated farming over large hinterlands held political power over other cities. Particularly applies to early Asian civilizations based in such river valleys as the Chang (Yangzi), the Indus, and those of Mesopotamia.
Command economy
The tightly controlled economic system of the former Soviet Union, whereby central planners in Moscow assigned the production of particular goods to particular places, often guided more by socialist ideology than the principles of economic geography.
Tundra
The treeless plain that lies along the Arctic shore in northernmost Russia and Canada, whose vegetation consists of mosses, lichens, and certain hardy grasses.
Rift valley
The trough or trench that forms when a thinning strip of the Earth's crust sinks between two parallel faults (surface fractures).
Triple Frontier
The turbulent and chaotic area in southern South America that surrounds the convergence of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Lawlessness pervades this haven for criminal elements, which is notorious for money laundering, arms and other smuggling, drug trafficking, and links to terrorist organizations, including money flows to the Middle East.
Gentrification-
The upgrading of an older residential area through private reinvestment, usually in the downtown area of a central city. Frequently, this involves the displacement of established lower-income residents, who cannot afford the heightened costs of living, and conflicts are not uncommon as such neighborhood change takes place.
Drone warfare
The use of remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as delivery systems to conduct military attacks. Tactical advantages include highly precise targeting, long flight times without refueling, difficulty of detection from the ground, and advanced imaging capabilities that allow drones to often "see" what is invisible to human pilots.
Continentality-
The variation of the continental effect on air temperatures in the interior portions of the world's landmasses. The greater the distance from the moderating influence of an ocean, the greater the extreme in summer and winter temperatures. Continental interiors also tend to be dry when the distance from oceanic moisture sources becomes considerable.
Distance decay
The various degenerative effects of distance on human spatial structures and interactions.
Boko Haram
The violent, jihadist, terrorist organization that is based in—and controls parts of—northeastern Nigeria. It engages in extreme terrorist attacks, increasingly beyond its territory as it seeks to expand into other parts of the country.
Population distribution
The way people have arranged themselves in geographic space. One of human geography's most essential expressions because it represents the sum total of the adjustments that a population has made to its natural, cultural, and economic environments.
Land tenure
The way people own, occupy, and use land.
Cultural geography
The wide-ranging and comprehensive field of geography that studies spatial aspects of human cultures.
Estuary
The widening mouth of a river as it reaches the sea; land subsidence or a rise in sea level has overcome the tendency to form a delta.
Emerging market
The world's fastest-growing national market economies as measured by economic growth rates, attraction of foreign direct investment, and other key indicators. Led by the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), but this club is now expanding to include many other countries.
Wallace's Line
The zoogeographical boundary proposed by Alfred Russel Wallace that separates the marsupial fauna of Australia and New Guinea from the non-marsupial fauna of Indonesia
Geographic Information Analysis (GIA)
Their features are guided interactive exercises that foster geographical thinking, spatial awareness, and data literacy.
Melting pot-
Traditional characterization of American society as a blend of numerous immigrant ethnic groups that over time were assimilated into a single societal mainstream. This notion always had its challengers among social scientists, and is now increasingly difficult to sustain given the increasing complexity and sheer scale of the U.S. ethnic mosaic in the twenty-first century.
Extreme weather events
Unprecedented, record-breaking departures from the longer-term weather patterns of a certain area. In India, such events have tripled since 1980 in the form of severe heat waves, droughts, and non-monsoonal rainstorms that trigger massive flooding and widespread landslides.
Suburbanization-
Urban growth away from the center, typically in the edges of urban areas.
Altitudinal zonation
Vertical regions defined by physical-environmental zones at various elevations, particularly in the highlands of South and Middle America.
Sustainable development
Viable, long-term development that does not deplete resources and/or cause significantly negative side-effects.
Global core
The constellation of countries with the most highly developed and influential economies (anchored by the United States; the 27 member-countries of the European Union; East Asia's China and Japan; and Australia/New Zealand). Although the global core is not a contiguous geographic region, its countries as a whole dominate international trade and investment flows.
Core-periphery relationship
The contrasting spatial characteristics of, and linkages between, the have (core) and have-not (periphery) components of a national, regional, or the global system.
Urban-rural divide-
The divide between cities and rural areas in terms of well-being, employment, services, and consumption; sometimes also in terms of culture and politics.
Rural-to-urban migration
The dominant migration flow from countryside to city that continues to transform the world's population, most notably in the less advantaged geographic realms.
Mobile money
The dominant system of text-messaged money exchange in Subsaharan Africa that is attributable to the realm's general lack of a formal banking infrastructure.
Central business district (CBD)-
The downtown heart of a central city; marked by high land values, a concentration of business and commerce, and the clustering of the tallest buildings.
Economic integration
The economic benefits of forging supranational partnerships among three or more countries. The European Union (EU) is the prototype; NAFTA and CARICOM are examples in the Middle American realm.
Great Recession-
The economic downturn from 2008-2011 that was in large part based on the so-called "mortgage meltdown," leading to foreclosures and other socio-economic distress.
Development
The economic, social, and institutional growth of national states.
Fossil fuel-
The energy resources of coal, natural gas, and petroleum (oil), so named collectively because they were formed by the geologic compression and transformation of tiny plant and animal organisms.
Inclusive development
The extent of equal economic (and social) development opportunities for different population groups, especially minorities and the poor.
Situation
The external locational attributes of an urban center; its relative location or regional position with reference to other non-local places.
Population geography
The field of geography that focuses on the spatial aspects of demography and the influences of demographic change on particular countries and regions.
Pacific Ring of Fire
Zone of crustal instability along tectonic plate boundaries, marked by earthquakes and volcanic activity, that ring the Pacific Ocean Basin.
Territorial sea
Zone of seawater adjacent to a country's coast, held to be part of the national territory and treated as a component of the sovereign state.
Cultural landscape
The forms and artifacts sequentially placed on the natural landscape by the activities of various human occupants. By this progressive imprinting of the human presence, the physical (natural) landscape is modified into the cultural landscape, forming an interacting unity between the two.
Balkanization
The fragmentation of a region into smaller, often hostile political units. Named after the historically contentious Balkan Peninsula of southeastern Europe.
NAFTA
The free-trade area launched in 1994 involving the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Marine geography
The geographic study of oceans and seas. Its practitioners investigate both the physical (e.g., coral-reef biogeography, ocean-atmosphere interactions, coastal geomorphology) as well as human (e.g., maritime boundary-making, fisheries, beachside development) aspects of oceanic environments.
Globalization
The gradual reduction of regional differences at the world scale, resulting from increasing international cultural, economic, and political interaction.
Unity of place
The great German natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt's notion that in a particular locale or region intricate connections exist among climate, geology, biology, and human cultures. This laid the foundation for modern geography as an integrative discipline marked by a spatial perspective.
Viticulture
The growing of grapes for the production of wine.
Land hemispheres
The half of the globe containing the greatest amount of land surface, centered on western Europe.
Northeast Passage
The high-latitude sea route of the Arctic Ocean that follows the entire north coast of Eurasia from northern Norway in the west to the northeasternmost corner of Russia where it meets the Bering Strait. Increased seasonal melting of the Arctic ice cap in recent years has begun to open up this waterway as a summer route for shipping between Europe and East Asia.
Northwest Passage
The high-latitude, Arctic Ocean sea route around North America extending from Alaska's Bering Strait in the west to the Davis Strait between Canada and Greenland in the east. Heightened summertime melting of the Arctic ice cap in recent years has increased the likelihood of opening up this waterway for shipping between Asia's Pacific Rim and the Atlantic seaboard of the Americas.
Demographic burden
The immediate significance of demography to economics lies in what is called the demographic burden. This term refers to the proportion of the population that is either too old or too young to be productive and that must be cared for by the productive population.
Neighborhood effect-
The impact of one's neighborhood on an individual's outlook, aspirations, socialization, and life chances.
Remote sensing
The indirect capture of images by specially equipped, Earth-orbiting satellites.
Site
The internal locational attributes of an urban center, including its local spatial organization and physical setting.
Dravidian languages
The language family, indigenous to the South Asian realm, that dominates southern India today; as opposed to the Indo-European languages, whose tongues dominate northern India.
Sunni Islam
The larger of Islam's two main sects (encompassing) roughly 90 percent of all Muslims) who adhere to the conviction that any devout follower of the Prophet Muhammad is eligible to be his legitimate successor.
Aboriginal land issue
The legal campaign in which Australia's indigenous peoples have claimed title to traditional land in several parts of that country. The courts have upheld certain claims, fueling Aboriginal activism that has raised broader issues of indigenous rights.
Climate
The long-term conditions (over at least 30 years) of aggregate weather over a region, summarized by averages and measures of variability; a synthesis of the succession of weather events we have learned to expect at any given location.
Tar sands-
The main source of oil from non-liquid petroleum reserves. The oil is mixed with sand and requires massive open-pit mining as well as a costly, complicated process to extract it. The largest-known deposits are located in the northeast of Canada's province of Alberta, and by most estimates these Athabasca Tar Sands constitute one of the largest oil reserves in the world. The high oil prices of recent years have led to greatly expanded production here, but the accompanying environmental degradation caused by strip-mining and waste disposal has triggered a widening protest movement that may limit the exploitation of this resource.
Indo-European language family
The major world language family that dominates the European geographic realm. This language family is also the most widely dispersed globally, and about half of humankind speaks one of its languages.
Indo-European languages
The major world language family that dominates the European geographic realm. This language family is also the most widely dispersed globally, and about half of humankind speaks one of its languages.
Overseas Chinese
The more than 50 million ethnic Chinese who live outside China. About two-thirds live in Southeast Asia, and many have become quite successful. A large number maintain links to China and as investors played a major economic role in stimulating the growth of SEZs and Open Cities in China's Pacific Rim.
Hurricane Alley
The most frequent pathway followed by tropical storms and hurricanes over the past 150 years in their generally westward movement across the Caribbean Basin. Historically, hurricane tracks have bundled most tightly in the center of this route, most often affecting the Lesser Antilles between Antigua and the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), Jamaica, Cuba, southernmost Florida, Mexico's Yucatán, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Population implosion
The opposite of population explosion; refers to the declining populations of many European countries and Russia in which the death rate exceeds the birth rate and immigration rate.
Arctic Circle
The parallel (circle) at 66.34 degrees North that defines the Arctic.
Antarctic Circle
The parallel (circle) at 66.34 degrees South that defines the Antarctic.
Informal economy
The part of a national economy that is not registered with the government, and for which reliable statistics are rarely available. The complement to a country's formal economy.
Formal economy
The part of a national economy that is registered with government agencies and complies with laws and regulations, especially taxation. The complement to a country's informal economy.
State territorial configuration
The particular geographic layout of sovereign territory of a state, that influences its internal functioning and external relations.
Sunbelt-
The popular name given to the southern tier of the United States, which is anchored by the mega-States of California, Texas, and Florida. Its warmer climate, superior recreational opportunities, and other amenities have been attracting large numbers of relocating people and activities since the 1960s; broader definitions of the Sunbelt also include much of the western United States, even Colorado and the coastal Pacific Northwest.
Absolute location
The position or place of a certain item on the surface of the Earth as expressed in degrees, minutes, and seconds of latitude and longitude.
Desalination
The process of removing dissolved salts from water, thereby producing fresh (drinking) water from seawater or brackish water.
Cultural diffusion
The process of spreading and adopting a cultural element from its place of origin across a wider area.
Devolution
The process whereby regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government.
Relative location
The regional position or situation of a place relative to the position of other places. Distance, accessibility, and connectivity affect relative location.
Rain shadow effect-
The relative dryness in areas downwind of mountain ranges resulting from orographic precipitation, wherein moist air masses are forced to deposit most of their water content as they cross the highlands.
Cold War
The rivalry and geopolitical conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union during most of the second half of the 20th century.
Economies of scale
The savings that accrue from large-scale production wherein the unit cost of manufacturing decreases as the level of operation enlarges. Supermarkets operate on this principle and are able to charge lower prices than small grocery stores.
Global climate change
The shift in the characteristics and spatial distribution of Earth's climates in response to a long-term trend in atmospheric warming.
Tectonic plate
The slabs of heavier rock on which the lighter rocks of the continents rest. The plates are in motion, propelled by gigantic circulation cells in the red-hot, molten rock below. Most earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are associated with collisions of the mobile plates, as is the building of mountain chains.
Continental drift
The slow movement of continents controlled by the processes associated with plate tectonics.
Shatter belt
an area of instability between regions with opposing political and cultural values
Megacity
Informal term referring to the world's most heavily populated cities; in this book, the term refers to a metropolis containing a population of greater than 10 million.
Maritime claims
Intended legal assertions made by states concerning sovereignty over an oceanic space as parts of their territorial seas, or as rights to an Exclusive Economic Zone (or as extensions into waters adjacent to land claims, such as in Antarctica
Antarctic Treaty
International cooperative agreement on the use of Antarctic territory. Originally signed in 1961, it was extended in 1991 under the Wellington Agreement.
Indirect rule
British colonial practice that kept indigenous power structures in place, co-opting individual rulers. The purpose was to minimize armed conflict and maximize profits.
Indochina
Broadly speaking, the region of Southeast Asia that has historically been influenced by both India and China; more narrowly, the part of Southeast Asia under French control during colonial times (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos).
Spatial perspective
Broadly, the geographic dimension or expression of any phenomenon; more specifically, anything related to the organization of space on the Earth' surface.
Ejidos
Mexican farmlands redistributed to peasant communities after the Revolution of 1910-1917. The government holds title to the land, but user rights are parceled out to village communities and then to individuals for cultivation.
Gender pay gap
The (large) difference in pay between males and females.
Near Abroad
The 14 former Soviet republics that, in combination with the dominant Russian Republic, constituted the USSR. Since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has asserted a sphere of influence in these now-independent countries, based on its proclaimed right to protect the interests of ethnic Russians who were settled there in substantial numbers during Soviet times. These 14 countries include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
Euro zone
The 19 countries (as of late 2019) whose official currency is the euro.
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
The 2000-kilometer (1250-mi), northeast-southwest development axis stretching between the westernmost Chinese city of Kashgar and Pakistan's new Indian Ocean port of Gwadar. A major future trade route that aligns with China's Belt and Road Initiative, its centerpiece is a bundled routeway of ultramodern rail, road, and pipeline connections expected to spawn various development nodes within the corridor, mostly in Pakistan.
Suwalki Gap
The 65-km (40-mile) southern stretch of border between Lithuania and Poland, the only overland connection between the Baltic states and other NATO countries (the other borders are with Russia and Belarus).
AFTA
The ASEAN Free Trade Agreement that since 1992, through lowered tariffs and other incentives, has fostered increased trade within Southeast Asia. This is the economic centerpiece of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a supranational organization whose members include 10 of that realm's 11 states (only East Timor does not participate).
APEC
The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Its 21 Pacific Rim member-economies promote free trade throughout the Asia Pacific region.
ASEAN
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a supranational organization whose members include 10 of that realm's 11 states: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (only minuscule East Timor does not participate, but is currently seeking to join).
Spatial system
The components and interactions of a functional region, which is defined by the areal extent of those interactions.
Environmental degradation
The accumulated human abuse of a region's natural landscape that, among other things, can involve air and water pollution, threats to plant and animal ecosystems, misuse of natural resources, and generally upsetting the balance between people and their habitat.
Small-island developing economies
The additional disadvantages faced by lower-income island-states because of their often small territorial size and populations as well as overland inaccessibility. Limited resources require expensive importing of many goods and services; the cost of government operations per capita are higher; and local production is unable to benefit from economies of scale.
Agribusiness
The agricultural operations of large, often multinational, corporations.
Natural landscape
The array of landforms that constitutes the Earth's surface (mountains, hills, plains, and plateaus) and the physical features that mark them (such as water bodies, soils, and vegetation). Each geographic realm has its distinctive combination of natural landscapes.
Geographic realm
The basic spatial unit in our world regionalization scheme. Each realm is defined in terms of a synthesis of its total human geography—a composite of its leading cultural, economic, historical, political, and appropriate environmental features.
Domino effect
The belief that political destabilization in one state can result in the collapse of order in a neighboring state, triggering a chain of events that, in turn, can affect a series of contiguous states.
Domino theory
The belief that political destabilization in one state can result in the collapse of order in a neighboring state, triggering a chain of events that, in turn, can affect a series of contiguous states.
Cartography
The branch of Geography that specializes in map-making. This specialization has a long history and has been enhanced to new levels through the digital revolution.
Transferability
The capacity to move a good from one place to another at a bearable cost; the ease with which a commodity may be transported.
Tropical deforestation
The clearing and destruction of tropical rainforests in order to make way for expanding settlement frontiers and the exploitation of new economic opportunities.
West Wind Drift
The clockwise movement of water as a current that circles around Antarctica in the Southern Ocean.
Ethnicity
The combination of a people's culture (traditions, customs, language, and religion) and racial ancestry.
Anthropocene
*A new epoch in the evolution of the Earth in which humans seem to have become, for better or worse, the predominant species affecting the natural environment. Climate change figures prominently in the Anthropocene and we will be returning to this issue in various chapters that follow. ** It is also an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth's history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet's climate and ecosystems. Plus, it is the period of time during which human activities have had an environmental impact on the Earth regarded as constituting a distinct geological age.
"Day Zero"
1. It is when most of the city's taps will be switched off - literally. The consequences of reaching this point will be far reaching. For one, it will mean residents will have to stand in line to collect 25 litres of water per person per day 2. Also, it is the day when a city's taps dry out and people have to stand in line to collect a daily quota of water. ... Many other big cities, including the national capital Delhi, are likely to run out of groundwater by next year, according to India's policy making body NITI Aayog's recent assessment.
Global periphery
All of the countries that lie outside the global core. Economically, these countries are subordinate to those of the global core in terms of development and international influence. Geographically, the global periphery is constituted by the 8 realms that lie outside North America, Europe, East Asia, and the Austral Realm.
Landlocked country
An interior state wholly surrounded by land. Without coasts, such a country is disadvantaged in terms of accessibility to international trade routes, and in the scramble for possession of areas of the continental shelf and control of the Exclusive Economic Zone beyond. Also, it is a country that does not have territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie on endorheic basins. ... Generally, being landlocked creates some political and economic handicaps that having access to international waters would avoid.
Maritime boundary
An international boundary that lies in the ocean. Like all boundaries, it is a vertical plane, extending from the seafloor to the upper limit of the air space in the atmosphere above the water.
Median-line boundary
An international maritime boundary drawn where the width of a sea is less than 400 nautical miles. Because the states on either side of that sea claim Exclusive Economic Zones of 200 nautical miles, it is necessary to reduce those claims to a (median) distance equidistant from each shoreline. Delimitation on the map almost always appears as a set of straight-line segments that reflect the configurations of the coastlines involved.
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)
An oceanic zone extending up to 200 nautical miles (370 km) from a shoreline, within which the coastal state can control fishing, mineral exploitation, and additional activities by all other countries.
Pandemic
An outbreak of a disease that spreads worldwide.
Aquifer-.
An underground reservoir of water contained within a porous, water-bearing rock layer
High seas
Areas of the oceans away from land, beyond national jurisdiction, open and free for all to use.
Continental shelf
Beyond the coastlines of many landmasses, the ocean floor declines very gently until the depth of about 600 feet (183 m). Beyond the 600-foot line the sea bottom usually drops off sharply, along the continental slope, toward the much deeper mid-oceanic basin. The submerged continental margin is called the continental shelf, and it extends from the shoreline to the upper edge of the continental slope.
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
China's global development strategy, announced in 2013, involving over a hundred infrastructure-investment projects. Some serve to connect China to surrounding countries (e.g., Kazakhstan or Laos), others support infrastructure developments within or between countries around the world. The BRI has significantly increased China's global presence.
Floating population
China's huge mass of mobile workers who respond to shifting employment needs within the country. Most are temporary urban dwellers with restricted residency rights, whose movements are controlled by the hukou system.
One-Child Policy
Chinese population control policy initiated in the late 1970s that proscribed (and enforced) a limit of one child per family of most population groups (mainly urban, Han populations). This policy, ended in 2016, had become increasingly controversial over the past decade.
Sovereignty
Controlling power and influence over a territory, especially by the government of an autonomous state over the people it rules.
Transculturation
Cultural borrowing and two-way exchanges that occur when different cultures of approximately equal complexity and technological level come into close contact.
Acculturation
Cultural modification resulting from intercultural borrowing. In cultural geography, the term refers to the change that occurs in the culture of indigenous peoples when contact is made with a society that is technologically superior.
Low island
Cultures associated with low-lying coral islands of the Pacific Realm that cannot wrest sufficient moisture from the tropical maritime air to avoid chronic drought. Thus productive agriculture is impossible, and their modest populations must rely on fishing and the coconut palm for survival. Moreover, they are now threatened by rising sea level.
High island
Cultures associated with volcanic islands of the Pacific Realm that are high enough in elevation to wrest substantial moisture from the tropical ocean air. They tend to be well watered, their volcanic soils enable productive agriculture, and they support larger populations than low islands.
NATO
Established in 1950 at the height of the Cold War as a U.S.-led supranational defense pact to shield postwar Europe against the Soviet military threat. NATO is now in transition, expanding its membership while modifying its objectives in the post-Soviet era. Its 28 member-states (as of late 2019) are: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Regional complementarity
Exists when a pair of regions, through an exchange of raw materials and/or finished products, can specifically satisfy each other's demands.
Complementarity
Exists when two regions, through an exchange of raw materials and/or finished products, can specifically satisfy each other's demands.
Xenophobia
Extreme dislike and fear of foreigners, sometimes fueled by populist politicians.
Intermodal connections-
Facilities and activities related to the transfer of goods in transit from one transportation mode to another (e.g., the loading of containers from a ship directly onto a truck or railcar).
Subsistence agriculture/farming
Farmers who eke out a living on a small plot of land on which they are only able to grow enough food to support their families or at best a small community.
Basin irrigation
Farming technique devised by ancient Egyptians to trap the Nile's annual floodwaters and their fertile silt by building fields with earthen ridges.
Commercial agriculture
For-profit agriculture.
Centripetal forces
Forces that unite and bind a country together—such as a strong national culture, shared ideological objectives, and a common faith.
State capitalism
Government-controlled corporations competing under free-market conditions, usually in a tightly regimented society.
Population pyramid
Graphic representation or profile of a national population according to age and gender. Such a diagram of age-sex structure typically displays the percentage of each age group (commonly in five-year increments) as a horizontal bar, whose length represents its relationship to the total population
Hanification
Imparting a cultural imprint by the ethnic Chinese (the "people of Han"). Within China often refers to the steadily increasing migration of Han Chinese into the country's periphery, especially Xinjiang and Xizang (Tibet). Overseas Chinese imprints, more generally referred to as Sinicization, have been significant as well, most important in the Southeast Asian realm.
Elongation
In political geography, refers to the territorial configuration of a state that is at least six times longer than its average width. Chile is the most prominent example of this shape on the world map.
Social stratification
In a layered or stratified society, the population is divided into a hierarchy of social classes. In an industrialized society, the working class is at the lower end; elites that possess capital and control the means of production are at the upper level.
Core area
In geography, a term with several connotations. Core refers to the center, heart, or focus. The core area of a nation-state is constituted by the national heartland, the largest population cluster, the most productive region, and the part of the country with the greatest centrality and accessibility probably containing the capital city as well.
Human evolution
Long-term biological maturation of the human species. Geographically, all evidence points toward East Africa as the source of humankind. Our species, Homo sapiens, emigrated from this hearth to eventually populate the rest of the habitable world.
Mental maps
Maps that individuals carry around in their minds that reflect their constantly evolving perception of how geographic space (ranging from their everyday activity space to the entire world) is organized around them.
Remittances
Money earned by emigrants that is sent back to family and friends in their home country, mostly in cash; forms an important part of the economy in poorer countries.
Fertility rate
More precisely the Total Fertility Rate, it is the average number of children born to women of childbearing age in a given population.
American Manufacturing Belt-
North America's near-rectangular core area, whose corners are Boston, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Baltimore.
Land alienation
One society or culture group taking land from another.
Intermodal transport system
One that smoothly integrates different surface transportation modes. The shipping of cargo containers depends on fast and efficient transfers: they can be stacked on the decks and in the holds of ships as well as attaching to flatbed railcars and trailer trucks.
Monsoon
Refers to the seasonal reversal of wind and moisture flows in certain parts of the subtropics and lower-middle latitudes. The dry monsoon occurs during the cool season when dry offshore winds prevail. The wet monsoon occurs in the hot summer months, which produce onshore winds that bring large amounts of rainfall. The air-pressure differential over land and sea is the triggering mechanism, with wind-flows always moving from areas of relatively higher pressure toward areas of relatively lower pressure. Monsoons make their greatest regional impact in the coastal and near-coastal zones of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.
Cerrado
Regional term referring to the fertile savannas of Brazil's interior Central-West that make it one of the world's most promising agricultural frontiers. Soybeans are the leading crop, and other grains and cotton are expanding. Inadequate transport links to the outside world remain a problem.
Biofuels
Renewable fuel produced from contemporary (not geological) biomass sources, mainly plants.
Scale
Representation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction or generalization. In cartography, the ratio of map distance to ground distance; indicated on a map as a bar graph, representative fraction, and/or verbal statement. Macroscale refers to a large area of national proportions; microscale refers to a local area no bigger than a county.
Four Motors of Europe
Rhône-Alpes (France), Baden-Württemberg (Germany), Catalonia (Spain), and Lombardy (Italy). Each is a high-technology-driven region marked by exceptional industrial vitality and economic success not only within Europe but on the global scene as well.
Biodiversity
Shorthand for biological diversity; the total variety of plant and animal species that exists in a given area.
Ground subsidence
Sinking land, caused by long-term geological processes or short-term human activity such as groundwater extraction.
Micro-credit
Small loans extended to poverty-stricken borrowers who would not otherwise qualify for them. The aim is to help combat poverty, encourage entrepreneurship, and to empower poor communities—especially their women.
Double delta
South Asia's combined delta formed by the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. All of Bangladesh lies on this enormous deltaic plain, which also encompasses surrounding parts of eastern India. Well over 200 million people live here, attracted by the fertility of its soils that are constantly replenished by the silt transported and deposited by these two of Asia's largest river systems. Natural hazards abound here as well, ranging from the flooding caused by excessive monsoonal rains to the intermittent storm surges of powerful cyclones (hurricanes) that come from the Bay of Bengal to the south.
Austral
South.
Peripheral development
Spatial pattern in which a country's or region's development (and population) is most heavily concentrated along its outer edges rather than in its interior.
Dalits
Term (meaning "the oppressed") used for the lowest caste in India's Hindu caste system. The official government rubric for Dalits is Scheduled Castes.
Barrio
Term meaning "neighborhood" in Spanish. Usually refers to an urban community in a Middle or South American city.
Offshore banking
Term referring to financial havens for foreign companies and individuals, who channel their earnings to accounts in such a country (usually an "offshore" island-state) to avoid paying taxes in their home countries.
Insurgent state
Territorial embodiment of a successful guerrilla movement. The establishment by antigovernment insurgents of a territorial base in which they exercise full control; thus a state within a state.
Protruded states
Territorial shape of a state that exhibits a narrow, elongated land extension (or protrusion) leading away from the main body of territory.
South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP)
The PRC's inter-basin water transfer scheme (the world's largest) to deliver massive quantities of fresh water from the Huang He and Chiang Jiang river systems to the burgeoning urban areas of northern China that face severe water shortages.
Containment
The U.S. geopolitical strategy during the Cold War of containing the influence of the Soviet Union within its own borders or nearby regions.
Satellite state
The countries of eastern Europe under Soviet hegemony between 1945 and 1989. This tier of countries—the "satellites" captured in Moscow's "orbit" following World War II—was bordered on the west by the Iron Curtain and on the east by the USSR. Using the names then in force, they included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.
State formation
The creation of a state, exemplifying traditions of human territoriality that go back thousands of years.
Holocene
The current interglacial epoch (the warm period of glacial contraction between the glacial expansions of an ice age); extends from 10,000 years ago to the present. Also known as the Recent Epoch.
Connectivity
The degree of direct linkage between a particular location and other locations within a regional, national, or global transportation network.
Gender imbalance
The demographic imbalance of males outnumbering females resulting from selective birth control. In China, this is an outcome of the One-Child Policy.
Outback
The name given by Australians to the vast, peripheral, sparsely settled interior of their country.
Information economy-
The new, increasingly dominant, postindustrial economy that is maturing in the most highly advanced countries of North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. Here, traditional industry is being eclipsed by a higher-technology productive complex focused on information-related activities.
Uneven development
The notion that economic development varies spatially, a central tenet of core-periphery relationships in realms, regions, and lesser geographic entities.
Physiologic density
The number of people per unit area of arable land.
Population density
The number of people per unit area. Also see arithmetic density and physiologic density measures.
Southern Ocean
The ocean that surrounds Antarctica.
Tsunami Warning System (TWS)
The ocean-basin-scale network of instrumented buoys and other sensors to detect and warn of Pacific tsunamis following coastal and seafloor earthquakes. The Pacific TWS is the most advanced and has proven its worth many times. Similar systems are or soon will be in place in other maritime arenas, including the Indian Ocean, the Northeast Atlantic/Mediterranean, and the Caribbean Sea.
GPS (Global Positioning System)- T
he orbiting-satellite-based navigation system that provides locational and time information, anywhere on or near the Earth's surface where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.
