AP Human Geography Vocabulary

Refugees

Refugees are people who are forced to flee a country for fear of persecution or death. Often, these people migrate to another country to avoid war, political violence, and natural disasters, such as famine and flooding.

Spatial Organization

This concept refers to the way in which objects are arranged on Earth's surface. It may be expressed in terms of location, distribution, distance, and direction.

Migration Selectivity

This theory predicts when a migrant is most likely to relocate. Personal characteristics such as age, socioeconomic status, education, and health influence one's decision to migrate. Migrants most likely fall within the 18- to 30-year-old range.

Baha'i

This belief system comprises a belief in one god, or creator, and the spiritual equality of all humankind. Started in Persia, now Iran, in the 19th century, it is considered a universal religion because it embraces aspects of other world faiths and denounces distinctions according to class, ethnicity, sex, and race.

Confucianism

This belief system derives from the teachings of Confucius, a philosopher and teacher who lived in China in the 5th century B.C.E. Rather than focusing on the worship of a god, this faith emphasizes the relationships among all living beings and forces. Followers are driven to maintain harmony, or balance, within these relationships by following prescribed standards and processes. This religion includes the concept of filial piety, or respect for one's elders.

Christianity

This belief system emphasizes worship in one god, or creator. Originating in what is now Israel, this religion has more than 2 billion followers, making it the world's largest religion. This faith includes a great variety of denominations, but its three main branches are Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy. The Christian holy book is the Bible, focusing mainly on the New Testament.

Animism

This belief system holds that natural objects and phenomena, such as animals, plants, and earthquakes, have spirits or souls.

Hinduism

This belief system, one of the world's major religions, entails the belief in multiple deities. The three main deities include Brahma the creator, Shiva the destroyer, and Vishnu the preserver. The religion's belief in reincarnation has helped shape a rigid social structure known as the caste system. Starting in India, the faith dates back more than 3,000 years.

Gerardus Mercator

This cartographer was among the first to produce a map that showed the general shape of the continents. In his maps, all lines of latitude and lines of longitude meet at right angles. For this reason, his maps greatly distort landmasses near the polar regions.

Overpopulation

This circumstance occurs when a population has exceeded the ability of available resources in an area.

Site

This concept defines a place based on its physical characteristics, such as its plant and animal life, elevation, and climate. For example, a site may be judged suitable or unsuitable for human habitation based on its physical characteristics.

Space-time Compression

This concept refers to efforts to overcome spatial distances and obstacles through technology, such as communication and transportation devices. These efforts are designed to save time in the distribution of peoples, goods, and ideas. For example, a fax machine may transmit a letter more quickly across a great distance than postal or hand delivery would.

Contagious Diffusion

This type of diffusion refers to the rapid spread of a phenomenon. It often applies to the spreading of disease but also applies to the spreading of ideas, information, and other phenomena.

Remote Sensing

This type of equipment uses satellites or other long-distance tools to scan Earth's surface to collect information about an area.

Conformal Map

This type of map accurately represents shape, but distorts area.

Molleweide Projection

This type of map is an example of an oval projection, which blends cylindrical and conic projections. This projection distorts the shape of objects in favor of accurately representing area, making it an equal-area projection.

Conic Projection

This type of map projection is drawn using a cone placed over a globe. The projection is cut and laid flat. Although conic projection keeps distance intact, it does not correctly represent direction.

Azimuthal Projection

this type of map class represents Earth from one specific point. Also known as planar projections, azimuthal projections show true direction. They are often used to represent the poles. On a map of the North Pole, all the points on the map are south of the North Pole point.

Distance Decay

Distance decay refers to the tendency of a phenomenon to lessen as it moves farther from its hearth. This decay often becomes apparent among migrant populations who have left their cultural hearth and assimilate into the new culture.

Population Projections

Population projections are predictions about future population changes based on existing demographic data, such as the crude birth rate and the crude death rate. Such projections presume that social, political, economic, and geographic conditions remain relatively stable.

Relative Location

Relative location identifies the position of a place relative to the position of another place. For example, the relative location of New York City may be expressed as north of Washington, D.C.

Denominations

These are branches, or subgroups, within a larger belief system that are organized according to specific customs or tenets that differ from other subgroups. For example, Protestant Christianity includes branches such as Lutheran, Baptist, Anglican, Episcopalian, and Methodist. Islamic branches include Sunni, Shi'a, and Sufi. Buddhist branches include Mahayana and Theravada.

Dowries

These are payments made by a woman's family to the family of a potential groom in order for the woman to marry him.

Cultural Landscape

These are the ways in which cultural groups shape the physical environment. Characteristics include different styles of architecture, art, land use, and clothing.

Latitudes

These imaginary lines run east to west along Earth's surface. Also known as parallels, they are used to identify absolute, or precise, locations. The North Pole is located at 90 degrees North latitude; the South Pole is located at 90 degrees South latitude.

Longitudes

These imaginary lines run north to south along Earth's surface. Also known as meridians, they are used to identify absolute, or precise, locations. Every line of longitude meets at the North and South Poles.

Flow-line Maps

These maps use arrows and other lines to show movement. They are especially good for representing migration trends, diffusion, and trade flow.

Forced Migrants

These migrants are forced to permanently relocate by the government or other cultural factors. For example, in the 19th century, the United States government forced Native Americans of the Cherokee Nation to leave Cherokee lands in Georgia and go west into reservation territory.

Atheists/Secularists

These people do not believe in gods or god-like figures. Secularists want to separate government and social institutions from any religious belief or code.

Intervening Obstacles

These phenomena are mental, cultural, economic, political, or physical challenges that prevent migration. Migrants turn back or otherwise abort their migration because of negative factors.

Five Pillars of Islam

These principles form the core of the Islamic faith. All Muslims are expected to work to achieve these key tenets. The first is belief in one God, or Allah. The second is the repetition of prayer five times a day, facing the holy city of Mecca. The third is the giving of donations, or tithes, to the poor, the needy, or a mosque. The fourth is fasting during the month of Ramadan. The fifth is a pilgrimage to Mecca during one's lifetime.

Human Systems

These systems comprise any human activity that has had an impact on Earth's surface. Such activities including farming, clearing forests, mining, building settlements, and damming waterways.

Physical Systems

These systems comprise elements of the physical, or natural environment, that may be isolated and studied apart from the rest of the environment. Examples include volcanoes, wetlands, flood waters, and plate tectonics.

Folklore

These types of stories are handed down from generation to generation, often through oral history. They communicate the beliefs, values, history, and legends of a people.

Thomas Malthus

This British economist first used the term overpopulation to describe population growth that exceeds available resources. In the 18th century, he authored An Essay on the Principle of Population, in which he suggested that Great Britain faced a population crisis because of overpopulation. He also predicted that the global population would increase exponentially and exceed the capacity of agriculture to sustain its growth.

Carl Titter

This German-born geographer and professor is credited with being one of the founders of modern geography. His work focused on relationships and interdependencies in nature. He is best known for his work Die Erdkunde, which supported the theory of environmental determinism. According to this theory, the success of a civilization depends primarily on its location. When applied to specific human cultures, the theory has led to prejudiced and erroneous conclusions. Although the theory has been largely discredited by geographers today, his work remains an influential development in the study of geography.

International Date Line

This arc roughly follows the 180th meridian, the farthest line on the scale of longitude. It is designated as the line along which each new calendar date begins on the globe.

Pattern

This aspect of distribution shows how objects are organized in relation to one another in a given area or space. Geographers use this concept to study relationships among objects. For example, objects may be distributed in a linear, triangular, centralized, three-dimensional, or random fashion.

Density

This aspect of distribution shows the average number of objects that appear in a given area or space. For example, you might want to calculate the average number of people who live in a city's limits, the average number of oak trees that grow in a state park, or the average number of houses in a neighborhood.

Concentration

This aspect of distribution shows the spread of a specific phenomenon over an area. For example, if one region shows a high number of fast food restaurants in close proximity to one another, the restaurants are considered to be clustered. If the restaurants are spread far apart from one another, they are said to be dispersed or scattered.

Distortion

This concept refers to errors in the representation of objects in maps and other images. Because flat maps represent Earth's surface, continents may appear larger, smaller, or differently shaped than they actually are. Distance and direction can also be distorted. Cartographers design different types of maps to minimize specific inaccuracies. For example, equal-area projections show relative sizes as accurately as possible, but distort land masses toward the poles.

Scale

This concept refers to the difference between the actual size of objects or areas on Earth's surface and the size at which they are represented on a map. For example, a distance of 1,000 miles on Earth's surface may be represented as only an inch on a map.

Place Utility

This concept refers to the incentives, or benefits, a place offers to encourage people to move there. For example, a community might try to attract new business by offering tax breaks to companies. Other places might emphasize a warm climate, a high-performing public school system, or a well-managed park system.

Migration

This concept refers to the permanent movement of people to a new location.

Hearth

This concept refers to the place where a phenomenon originated before it spread. A cultural hearth is the place where a culture first began to develop.

Situation

This concept refers to the relationship between a place and other nearby places, such as cities, landforms, and bodies of water. For example, a city may benefit from its situation along a river.

Diffusion

This concept refers to the spread of a phenomenon or principle. Cultural diffusion refers to the movement of ideas, principles, beliefs, and other cultural elements among people. This type of diffusion can happen through population migration, through the mass media, and by other means. Disease diffusion refers to the spread of a disease, such as influenza, among people.

Satellite Imagery

This consists of photographs of Earth and other objects in space captured by artificial satellites.

Demography

This discipline refers to the study of human population characteristics. Scientists collect data about population trends, analyze the data, and make predictions based on those data.

Buddhism

This faith derives from the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. It broke away from the Hindu caste system by emphasizing that the individual can achieve spiritual enlightenment through meditation and right actions, also known as the Eightfold Path. With enlightenment, the individual sheds hardships and desires. Originating in India, this belief system is practiced around the world today.

Cartography

This field of study emphasizes the art and science of mapmaking. One of the goals of cartography is to develop more accurate representations of the Earth that decrease distortion.

Human Geography

This field of study emphasizes the impact of human beings on the physical landscape. It explores human characteristics such as population, industry, agriculture, settlement, and culture, and examines the relationship between human beings and the environment.

Net Migration

This figure refers to the number of immigrants to a country minus the number of emigrants from the same country.

Cartograms

This form of map organizes information about space based on a specific set of data. Cartograms are often used to represent world population by displaying countries according to their relative populations rather than their relative sizes. Countries with large populations such as China and India appear larger on the map.

Distribution

This geographic concept presumes that everything on Earth has a physical location and that all things are organized in some way across physical space. The three types of geographic distribution are concentration, density, and pattern. This concept can apply to people, animals, plants, buildings, and any other physical object in any physical space, from a kitchen to the planet.

Demographic Transition Model

This geographic tool is used to explain and track changes in population according to changes in economic development. Generally organized into four stages, it charts the shift from high birth rates and death rates to low birth rates and death rates as a society becomes industrialized.

Gravity Model

This geographic tool is used to gauge the relationship between two cities, or urban centers. The model presumes that the population of two cities is more important than the distance that separates them. The model indicates the degree to which trade, travel, and communication are likely to exist between two cities.

GPS (Global Positioning System)

This geographic tool uses satellite signals to pinpoint latitude and longitude coordinates, thus identifying absolute locations on Earth. The technology is commonly incorporated into cars and cell phones as well as other devices.

Toponym

This is a name given to a physical feature or place such as cities, landforms, bodies of water, and other features. The name may be specific or general. For example, both Chicago and canyon are examples of toponyms.

Formal Region

This is an area in which one or more specific characteristics define everything within that region. Examples of this type of region include a country defined by political characteristics, such as shared laws, and an economic region defined by a specific activity, such as farming or manufacturing.

Acculturation

This is the process by which people from one culture change in response to contact with another culture. For example, when non-English-speaking peoples immigrate to the United States, they may use English more and use their native language less.

Indo-European Language Family

This largest of the language families grew out of Asia and Europe and comprises hundreds of modern languages and dialects. The language family includes eight main branches, including Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, and Romance. The English language comes from the Western Germanic language group.

Equal-area Projection

This map is designed to spread distortion equally across the spatial area. This type of projection distorts the shape of objects in favor of accurately representing area.

Epidemiological Transitions

This model identifies the causes of death common to each stage of the demographic transition model. For example, cholera becomes widespread in societies that have developed crowded, overpopulated cities.

Population Density

This number measures the number of people or other organisms that occupy a given space. Urban areas tend to have higher population densities than rural areas.

Dowry Death

This occurs when a groom or his family kills his bride because her family did not pay the promised dowry. This custom exists in some societies that still use a dowry system to seal marriage contracts.

Intervening Opportunity

This phenomenon is a positive circumstance that encourages migrants to change their intended destination because they stop their migration when they encounter another place that offers favorable cultural, economic, political, or physical conditions.

Demographic Momentum

This phenomenon occurs when a large segment of a population is young. Momentum in growth occurs because that generation will give birth to more people than the preceding generation and continue a trend of population growth. The momentum will continue to increase unless slowed by decreasing the birth rate or increasing the death rate.

Zero Population Growth

This phenomenon occurs when the crude birth rate of a society equals its crude death rate. This means that the population neither increases nor decreases.

Migration Transition

This phenomenon refers to a chance in a society's migration pattern because of social, political, economic, demographic, and physical conditions. For example, industrialization may encourage more migration to an area, whereas rapid population growth may encourage more migration from an area.

Ian Bremmer

This political scientist developed an economic measuring tool called the J-curve. This scale evaluates countries based on their "openness" and "stability," both of which are considered indicators of economic progress.

Demographic Equation

This population indicator calculates the rate of global population growth by subtracting the number of deaths from the number of births.

Infant Mortality Rate

This population indicator counts the number of babies, or infants, who die each year before their first birthday.

Crude Death Rate

This population indicator is calculated by counting the number of deaths in a society per 1,000 people per year.

Crude Birth Rate

This population indicator is calculated by counting the number of live births in a society per 1,000 people per year.

Rate of Natural Increase

This population indicator is calculated by subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth rate. A positive figure indicates that the population is increasing, and a negative figure indicates that the population is decreasing.

Mortality

This population indicator refers to the number of deaths relative to the overall population.

Regionalization

This process involves organizing Earth's surface into regions based on certain shared characteristics. Such characteristics distinguish a region from other places. Political, cultural, economic, and geographic features may all be used to define specific regions.

Population Distribution

This refers to the pattern of people across Earth's surface, or where they live. This pattern is often uneven because people often settle in areas that contain vital resources, such as bodies of water or arable farmland.

Sustainability

This refers to the use of resources in a way that ensures future generations will also have enough resources to survive with a comparable or higher standard of living. Lifestyles are considered unsustainable when they deplete resources so that future generations cannot maintain the same lifestyles.

Fundamentalism

This religious movement emphasizes a strict, literal adherence to a belief system's basic tenets or holy book. Followers are expected to behave in strict accordance with codified rules and principles.

Possibilist Approach

This school of thought proposes that environmental conditions have some impact on human behavior but that culture largely develops as a result of human choices and actions. The theory was proposed as an alternative to environmental determinism. It suggests that human beings have the ability to overcome environmental challenges to develop a society of their choosing.

Environmental Determinism

This school of thought proposes that human behaviors in a given culture develop as a direct result of the environmental conditions in which that culture emerges. The theory was put forth in the early 20th century by geographers such as Ellsworth Huntington, Carl Ritter, and Ellen Churchill Semple. It was used to explain ethnic and cultural differences, and it has since been attacked for supporting ethnic stereotypes and prejudices.

Activity Space

This space refers to an area in which human beings conduct specific activities. This may refer to one person conducting a limited activity or to an entire culture that operates within a larger region. People may move and find a new activity space when other persons infringe on their space.

Carrying Capacity

This standard refers to the ability of an area to support a certain population based on environmental conditions and resources. When the population exceeds the area's capacity, then the area's resources cannot meet the needs of its entire population.

Sex Ratio

This statistic compares the number of men to the number of women in a given population.

Total Fertility

This statistic counts the average number of babies that a woman in a given society delivers during her childbearing years.

Quotas

This statistic is a limit that the federal government sets on the number of people who may immigrate to a country. For example, one country's leadership may decide that only 1 million immigrants will be admitted in a year.

Doubling Time

This statistic refers to the number of years that it takes a country's population to double.

Dependency Ratio

This statistic refers to the ratio of people who depend on a society's working population for support. This ratio is calculated by comparing the number of persons aged 0 to 14 and over the age of 65 to the number of persons aged 15 to 64. The ratio presumes that people aged 15 to 64 make up the bulk of the workforce.

Underpopulation

This term refers to a circumstance in which a society's population has decreased to the extent that it can no longer support the society's economic system. For example, the working generation may be too small to support a larger nonworking or retired population.

Push Factor

This term refers to a negative perception about a place that motivates people to leave that place and move to another. For example, a person may flee one home to find another because he or she fears war, persecution, or famine.

Pull Factor

This term refers to a positive perception about a place that motivates people to move there. For example, a person may decide to move to a city that he or she believes offers good job opportunities.

Space

This term refers to a specific area on Earth's surface that is measurable in three dimensions and can be represented in two dimensions on a map. It may refer to an area occupied by objects, or it may refer to the area between objects.

Dialect

This term refers to a variation of a parent language based on regional or cultural differences in the way the language is spoken. They are marked by specific vocabulary, pronunciations, speed of speech, and syntax, or grammatical structure. For example, English speakers in the United States and in the United Kingdom speak different dialects. A dialect is often identified as a regional accent, such as the Southern accent of the United States.

Non-ecumene

This term refers to an area that is uninhabited or sparsely inhabited. Environmental conditions, such as lack of resources or extreme climate, make the area inhospitable to human habitation.

Coyote

This term refers to an individual who helps smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States. The smuggler charges a fee for this service and often does not guarantee successful entry.

Ecumene

This term refers to land that is deemed habitable for human beings based on available resources and terrain. This type of land possesses adequate food and water sources to sustain human life. The terrain is suitable for settlement and economic activity, such as farming.

Linear Growth

This term refers to population growth that is consistent every year. For example, a population that grows by 500 people one year would grow by 500 people the subsequent year.

Immigration

This term refers to the movement of people from one country or region into another. These people emigrate from a place and immigrate to a place.

Emigration

This term refers to the movement of people who leave one country or region to live in another. These people emigrate from a place and immigrate to a place.

Architectural Form

This term refers to the style of a society's buildings and structures based on design and function. For example, skyscrapers have a different architectural form than castles. Christian churches, Islamic mosques, and Shinto pagodas all have different forms.

Culture

This term refers to the way of life of a group of people as expressed through their traditions, language, art, architecture, beliefs, food, and social customs.

Adaptive Strategies

This term refers to the ways in which a person adapts to a new culture. For example, a person who moves from a warm climate to a cold climate must change the ways he or she dresses because of the weather.

Spatial Interaction

This theme of geography refers to how well a given place is connected with the rest of the world. A place's spatial interaction determines its global importance. This is also referred to as movement. A place with poor transportation and communication systems has low spatial interaction.

Life Course

This theory examines the development of a person's life from the fetal stage until advanced age. The approach works across disciplines—psychology, biology, geography, economics—to understand influences on individual development. Geographers apply this school of thought to the study of motivating factors regarding migration, settlement, economic activity, and environmental interaction.

Exponential Growth

This type of population growth indicates that the population is increasing according to a certain percentage every year. For example, if a population is increasing exponentially by 25%, then to predict the next stage of growth, you would multiply the current population by 25% and add the resultant figure. In the case of 1,000 people, you would add 250, and predict that the population will grow to 1,250. Within five years, the population would grow from 1,000 to 2,441 people.

Functional Region

This type of region centers on a specific node or focal point. The region encompasses those areas connected to or affected by the node. The level of activity related to that node decreases as the distance from that node increases. Examples include a radio broadcasting area, a shopping mall trade area, and a public school or police district.

Tertiary Societies

This type of society is one in which most people work in the service industry. They do not produce goods but instead sell goods and provide other services.

Census

This type of survey refers to a detailed counting of the population, often according to specific characteristics such as age, sex, ethnicity, and occupation. This type of survey occurs in the United States every 10 years.

Geographic Information System (GIS)

This type of system provides a platform for storing, accessing, and using a wide variety of geographic information. Typically, a system includes a database component for compiling and saving information as well as a software tool for analyzing, correlating, applying, and sharing data.

Choropleth Map

This type of thematic map represents data in a spatial format. Demographic data, such as literacy rates around the world, can be displayed on a choropleth map. Cartographers use color or patterns to show demographic data on the map, which provides a visual reference for comparing data between places.

Neo-malthusian

This theory suggests that population growth is highest as countries develop. Advances in medical care have led to lower death rates and increased birth rates in many less developed countries. The resulting population explosion exceeds the available food supply. Societies with rapidly growing populations deplete non-food resources as well. Depleted resources will force societies to compete for food and energy sources. Neo-Malthusians believe that immigrant groups with high crude birth rates will result in exponential population growth in the United States.

Population Pyramid

This tool, also called an age-sex pyramid, charts demographic data based on sex and age. The resultant data often form a pyramid shape and show the distribution of the population across sex and age groups.

Contemporary Architecture

This type of architecture refers to building and design styles and techniques that are characteristic of a society or a region in the current time period.

Folk Architecture

This type of architecture, also known as folk housing, refers to the building styles that develop in a place based on available resources and human needs. For example, people who live near forestland may build many structures from wood. Those who have ready supplies of stone are more likely to make stone structures. Those who have neither wood nor stone may make bricks from mud or clay.

Ethnic Religion

This type of belief system is generally concentrated in a specific place or region on Earth. It is based on the physical and cultural features of that place. It is the religion practiced by the family and culture of the individual, who inherits rather than converts to the religion. Followers of the faith do not seek to convert others to their religion. Hinduism is an example of this type of faith.

Population Explosion

This type of crisis occurs when the population grows rapidly in an area that is unable to support the increase.

Folk Culture

This type of culture refers to the customs practiced by a local or regional group of people. A parent culture may comprise many different folk cultures. Such traditions are handed down from generation to generation, usually through word of mouth.

Transhumance

This type of cyclic migration involves moving livestock to higher elevations during warm summer months and to lower elevations during cold winter months.

Arithmetic Density

This type of density is calculated by dividing a place's population by its total land area. It may provide an inaccurate representation of an area's density as people may not occupy all the land in an area.

Physiological Density

This type of density is calculated by dividing a place's population by its usable, or arable, land area. This measurement helps geographers understand how much farmland is available to the population.

Migration Diffusion

This type of diffusion refers to the physical movement, or migration, of people from one place to another.

Hierarchical Diffusion

This type of diffusion refers to the spread of a phenomenon from a minority elite, such as political officials or popular entertainers, to a larger segment of the population. For example, fashion trends often spread from well-known music performers to young people who admire them.

Expansion Diffusion

This type of diffusion refers to the spread of a phenomenon from its place of origin to other regions. Subtypes of this diffusion include hierarchical, stimulus, and contagious diffusion.

Relocation Diffusion

This type of diffusion refers to the spread of culture, ideas, and disease through the movement of people. Such diffusion occurs when people migrate from one place to another, bringing with them customs, language, ideas, illnesses, and other phenomena.

Random Distribution

This type of distribution indicates that objects are arranged across an area in a random way. They do not appear to follow a set pattern, such as a linear or a centralized pattern.

Built Environment

This type of environment refers to the material impact of human beings on the natural environment. Houses, roads, reservoirs, dams, parks, and other human-made structures and areas make up this type of environment.

Stimulus Diffusion

This type of expansion diffusion occurs when a concept from one place is incorporated into goods or practices in another place. For example, a food product or an artistic style in one country may inspire people in another country to start making similar foods or artistic creations.

Folk Landscape

This type of landscape is based on people's perceptions of a place. The landscape comprises features and aspects that people believe to exist. The Wild West in the United States is an example of a folk landscape.

Anglo-American Landscape

This type of landscape refers to the folk, or cultural, landscape of Anglo-America. Anglo-America comprises areas in the Americas in which English is the dominant language, specifically the United States and Canada. Characteristics of the Anglo-American landscape include patterns in architecture, urban development, and road construction.

Creole Language

This type of language derives from two or more other languages, blending aspects of both to create an entirely new, stable language. For example, Haitian creole derives from French and African languages.

Goode's Homolosine Projection

This type of map is an example of an equal-area projection, which distorts the shape of objects in favor of accurately representing area. This projection divides the globe by continent and ocean to spread distortion equally across landmasses and bodies of water.

Oval Projection

This type of map is an example of an equal-area projection. It blends cylindrical and conic projections and distorts the shape of objects in favor of accurately representing area.

Robinson Projection

This type of map is an uninterrupted map projection. It compromises between equal-area projections and conformal projections. It represents spatial relationships well, but distorts both shape and area of land masses. The distortion is most severe at the poles, which are stretched into lines instead of points.

Mental Map

This type of map is based on an individual's perception of place. It consists of an individual's understanding of what a place is like and its location. This type of map may be accurate or inaccurate.

Planar Projection

This type of map shows Earth's surface from one point. The projection extends from that point, and shows true, or accurate, direction. For example, such a projection may focus on the South Pole, in which case all points on the map extend northward. Azimuthal projections are an example of this type of projection.

Undocumented Migrants

This type of migrant has entered a country without following proper immigration procedures. They fail to obtain legal documentation that permits them to settle in the country.

Cyclic Movement

This type of migration involves seasonally moving livestock to areas where food is more plentiful. Nomadic pastoralists often practice this type of migration.

Chain Migration

This type of migration refers to a process by which members of family immigrate to another country in stages. For example, one or more family members may immigrate to the United States. They then save money and send it to other family members, who come when they are able, continuing the pattern until the entire extended family migrates.

Transmigration

This type of migration refers to the forced movement of a people from one place to another within a country.

Rural-to-Urban Migration

This type of migration refers to the movement of people from rural areas to urban areas. People typically leave sparsely settled countryside or wilderness areas to pursue better opportunities in towns and cities.

Intercontinental Migration

This type of migration refers to the movement of people or animals across a continent or an ocean to another continent. For example, people who emigrate from East Asia to the United States move from one continent to another.

International Migration

This type of migration refers to the movement of people or animals across national borders from one country to another. For example, people might move from the United States to Canada.

Interregional Migration

This type of migration refers to the movement of people or animals from one geographic region to another, often within a nation's borders. For example, people might move from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest.

Internal Migration

This type of migration refers to the movement of people or animals within a nation's border. For example, people might migrate from one city to another or across state or provincial lines.

Residential Mobility

This type of movement refers to a frequent change of residence. People may move repeatedly within the same community, region, or country or among different communities, regions, or countries.

Perceptual Region/Vernacular Region

A person's perception of the region defines this type of region. An individual feels, or perceives, that a region exists based on certain shared characteristics. Examples include geographic regions such as the Midwest and the South, which may be defined by individuals' ideas about those locations and their common features.

Absolute Location

Absolute location identifies the exact position of a place using longitude and latitude coordinates. For example, absolute location of Washington D.C., is 76°51'W 39°10'N.

Cylindrical Map

The projection shows all continents and true direction; however land close to the poles is distorted in size. The Mercator map is one example of this type of map.