Shared Flashcard Set

Details

AP Human Geography Terms
All Key Terms from Rubenstein's book
333
Geography
9th Grade
05/09/2011

Additional Geography Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
Acid Deposition
Definition
Sulfur oxides  and nitrogen oxides, emitted by burning fossil fuels, enter the atmosphere--where they combine with oxygen and water to form sulfuric acid and nitric acid--and return to Earth's surface.
Term
Acid Precipitation
Definition
Conversion of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides to acids that return to Earth as rain, snow, or fog. 
Term
Active Solar Energy Systems 
Definition
Solar energy system that collects energy through the use of mechanical devices like photovoltaic calls or flat-plate collectors.
Term
Agribusiness
Definition
Commercial agriculture characterized by integration of different steps in the food-processing industry, usually through ownership by large corporations.
Term
Agricultural Density
Definition
The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture.
Term
Agricultural Revolution
Definition
The time when human beings first domesticated plants and animals and no longer relied entirely on hunting and gathering. 
Term
Agriculture
Definition
The deliberate effort to modify a portion of Earth's surface through cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock for sustenance or economic gain.
Term
Air Pollution
Definition
Concentration of trace substances, such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and solid particulates, at a greater level than occurs in average air.
Term
Animate Power
Definition
Power supplied by people or animals.
Term
Animism
Definition
Belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and conscious life.
Term
Annexation
Definition
Legally adding land area to a city in the US.
Term
Apartheid 
Definition
Laws (no longer in effect) in South Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas.
Term
Arithmetic Density
Definition
The total number of people divided by the total land area.
Term
Autonomous Religion
Definition
A religion that doesn't have a central authority but shares ideas and cooperates informally.
Term
Balance of Power
Definition
Condition of roughly equal strength between opposing countries or alliances of countries. 
Term
Balkanization
Definition
Process by which a state breaks down through conflicts among its ethnicities.
Term
Balkanized
Definition
A small geographic area that could not successfully be organized into one or more stable states because it was inhabited by many ethnicities with complex, long-standing antagonisms toward each other.  
Term
Base Line 
Definition
An east-west line designated under the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the surveying and numbering of townships in the US.
Term
Basic Industries
Definition
Industries that sell their products or services primarily to consumers outside the settlement.
Term
Biochemical Oxygen Demand
Definition
Amount of oxygen required by aquatic bacteria to decompose a given load of organic waste; a measure of water pollution.
Term
Biodiversity
Definition
The number of species within a specific habitat. 
Term
Biomass Fuel
Definition
Fuel that derives from plant material and animal waste.
Term
Blockbusting
Definition
A process by which real estate agents convince white  property owners to sell their houses at low prices because of fear that black families will soon move into the neighborhood.
Term
Boundary
Definition
Invisible line that marks the extent of a state's territory.
Term
Brain Drain
Definition
Large-scale emigration by talented people.
Term
Branch (of religion)
Definition
A large and fundamental division within a religion.
Term
Break-of-Bulk Point
Definition
A location where transfer is possible from one mode of transportation to another.
Term
Breeder Reactor
Definition
A nuclear power plant that creates its own fuel from plutonium.
Term
British Received Pronunciation
Definition
The dialect of English associated with upper-class Britons living in the London area and now considered standard in the UK
Term
Bulk-gaining Industry
Definition
An industry in which the final product weighs more or comprises a greater volume than the inputs.
Term
Bulk-reducing industry
Definition
An industry in which the final product weighs less or comprises a lower volume than the inputs.
Term
Business Services
Definition
Services that primarily meet the needs of other businesses.
Term
Cartography
Definition
The science of making maps.
Term
Caste
Definition
The class or distinct hereditary order into which a Hindu is assigned according to religious law.
Term
Census Tract
Definition
An area delineated by the US Bureau of the Census for which statistics are published; in urbanized areas, census tracts correspond roughly to neighborhoods.
Term
Census
Definition
A complete enumeration of a population.
Term
Central Business District
Definition
The area of the city where retail and office activities are clustered.
Term
Central Place Theory
Definition
A theory that explains the distribution of services, based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services; larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements and provide services for a larger number of people who are willing to travel farther.
Term
Central Place
Definition
A market center for the exchange of services by people attracted from the surrounding area.
Term
Centripetal Force
Definition
An attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state.
Term
Cereal Grain
Definition
A grass yielding grain for food.
Term
Chaff
Definition
Husks of grain separated from the seed by threshing.
Term
Chain Migration
Definition
Migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there.
Term
Chlorofluorocarbon CFC
Definition
A gas used as a solvent, a propellant in aerosols, a refrigerant, and in plastic foams and fire extinguishers.
Term
Circulation
Definition
Short-term, repetitive, or cyclical movements that recur on a regular basis.
Term
City-State
Definition
A sovereign state comprising a city and its immediate hinterland,
Term
Clustered Rural Settlement
Definition
A rural settlement in which the houses and farm buildings of each family are situated close to each other and fields surround the settlement.
Term
Colonialism
Definition
Attempt by one country to establish settlements and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory.
Term
Colony
Definition
A territory that is legally tied to a sovereign state rather than completely independent.
Term
Combine
Definition
A machine that reaps, threshes, and cleans grain while moving over a field. 
Term
Commercial Agriculture
Definition
Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm.
Term
Compact State
Definition
A state in which the distance from the center to any boundary does not vary significantly.
Term
Concentration
Definition
The spread of something over a given area.
Term
Concentric Zone Model
Definition
A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are spatially arranged in a series of rings.
Term
Connections
Definition
Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.
Term
Conservation
Definition
The sustainable use and management of a natural resource, through consuming at a less rapid rate than it can be replaced.
Term
Consumer Services
Definition
Businesses that provide services primarily to individual consumers, including retail services and personal services. 
Term
Contagious Diffusion
Definition
The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.
Term
Cosmogony
Definition
A set of religious beliefs concerning the origin of the universe.
Term
Cottage Industry
Definition
Manufacturing based in homes rather than on a factory, commonly found before the Industrial Revolution.
Term
Council of Government
Definition
A cooperative agency consisting of representatives of local governments in a metropolitan area in the US.
Term
Counterurbanization
Definition
Net migration from urban to rural areas in MDCs.
Term
Creole or Creolized Language
Definition
A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated.
Term
Crop Rotation
Definition
The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil.
Term
Crop
Definition
Grain or fruit gathered from a field as a harvest during a particular season.
Term
Crude Birth Rate
Definition
The total number of live births in a year for every 1,000 people alive in the society.
Term
Crude Death Rate
Definition
The total number of deaths for every 1,000 people alive in the society.
Term
Cultural Ecology
Definition
Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.
Term
Cultural Landscape
Definition
Fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group.
Term
Culture
Definition
The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group of people's distinct tradition.
Term
Custom
Definition
The frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that it becomes characteristic of the group of people performing the act. 
Term
Demographic Transition
Definition
The process of changing in a society's population from a condition of high crude birth and death rates and low rate of natural increase to a condition of low crude birth and death rates, low rate of natural increase, and a higher total population. 
Term
Demography
Definition
The scientific study of population characteristics.
Term
Denomination
Definition
A division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations in a single legal and administrative body. 
Term
Density
Definition
The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area.
Term
Density Gradient
Definition
The change in density in an urban area from the center to the periphery.
Term
Dependency Ratio
Definition
The number of people under the age of 15 and over the age of 64, compared to the number of people active in the labor force.
Term
Desertification
Definition
Degradation of land, especially in semiarid areas, primarily because of human actions like excessive crop planting, animal grazing, and tree cutting.
Term
Development
Definition
A process of improvement in the material conditions of people through diffusion of knowledge and technology.
Term
Dialect
Definition
A regional variation of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation,
Term
Diffusion
Definition
The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time.
Term
Diocese
Definition
The basic unit of geographic organization in the Roman Catholic Church. 
Term
Dispersed Rural Settlement
Definition
A rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms rather than clustered villages.
Term
Distance Decay
Definition
The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin.
Term
Distribution
Definition
The arrangement of something across Earth's surface.
Term
Double Cropping
Definition
Harvesting twice a year from the same field.
Term
Doubling Time
Definition
The number of years needed to double a population, assuming a constant rate of natural increase.
Term
Ebonics
Definition
Dialect spoken by some African-Americans.
Term
Economic Base
Definition
A community's collection of basic industries.
Term
Ecumene
Definition
The portion of Earth's surface occupied by permanent human settlement.
Term
Edge City
Definition
A large node of office and retail activities on the edge of an urban area.
Term
Elongated State
Definition
A state with a long, narrow shape.
Term
Emigration
Definition
Migration FROM a location.
Term
Enclosure Movement
Definition
The process of consolidating small landholdings into a smaller number of larger farms in England during the 18th Century. 
Term
Environmental Determinism
Definition
A 19th- and early 20th- century approach to the study of geography that argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore  the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.
Term
Epidemiological Transition
Definition
Distinctive causes of death in each stage of the demographic transition.
Term
Epidemiology
Definition
Branch of medical science concerned with the incidence, distribution, and control of diseases that affect large numbers of people.
Term
Ethnic Cleansing
Definition
Process in which more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region.
Term
Ethnic Religion
Definition
A religion with a relatively concentrated spatial distribution whose principles are likely to be based on the physical characteristics of the particular location in which its adherents are concentrated.
Term
Ethnicity
Definition
Identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of common heredity and cultural traditions.
Term
Expansion Diffusion
Definition
The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process.
Term
Extinct Language
Definition
A language that was once used by people in daily activities but is no longer used.
Term
Federal State
Definition
An internal organization of a state that allocates most powers to units of local government.
Term
Ferrous
Definition
Metal, including iron ore, that are utilized in the production of iron and steel.
Term
Filtering
Definition
A process of change in the use of a house, from single-family owner occupancy to abandonment.
Term
Fission
Definition
The splitting of an atomic nucleus to release energy.
Term
Floodplain
Definition
The area subject to flooding during a given number of years according to historical trends.
Term
Folk Culture
Definition
Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups.
Term
Forced Migration
Definition
Permanent movement compelled usually by cultural factors.
Term
Fordist Production
Definition
Form of mass production in which each worker is assigned one specific task to perform repeatedly.
Term
Formal Region
Definition
(or uniform or homogeneous) An area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics.
Term
Fossil Fuel
Definition
Energy source formed from the residue of plants and animals buried millions of years ago.
Term
Fragmented State
Definition
A state that includes several discontinuous pieces of territory.
Term
Frontier
Definition
A zone separating two states in which neither state exercises political control.
Term
Functional (or nodal) Region
Definition
An area organized around a nodal or focal point.
Term
Fundamentalism
Definition
Literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic principles of a religion (or a religious branch, denomination, or sect).
Term
Fusion
Definition
Creation of energy by joining the nuclei of two hydrogen atoms to form helium.
Term
Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)
Definition
Compares the ability of women and men to participate in economic and political decision making.
Term
Gender-Related Development Index (GDI)
Definition
Compares the level of development of women with that of both sexes.
Term
Gentrification
Definition
A process of converting an urban neighborhood from a predominantly low-income renter-occupied area to a predominantly middle-class owner-occupied area.
Term
Geothermal Energy
Definition
Energy from steam or hot water produced from hot or molten underground rocks.
Term
Gerrymandering
Definition
Process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power.
Term
Ghetto
Definition
During the Middle Ages, a neighborhood in a city set up by law to be inhabited only by Jews; now used to denote a section of a city in which members of any minority group live because of social, legal, or economic pressure.
Term
GIS
Definition
A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data.
Term
Globalization
Definition
Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.
Term
Global Positioning System (GPS)
Definition
A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers.
Term
Grain
Definition
Seed of a cereal grass.
Term
Gravity Model
Definition
A model that holds that the potential use of a service at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel to reach the service.
Term
Green Revolution
Definition
Rapid diffusion of new agricultural technology, especially new high-yield seeds and fertilizers.
Term
Greenbelt
Definition
A ring of land maintained as parks, agriculture, or other types of open space to limit the sprawl of an urban area. 
Term
Greenhouse Effect
Definition
Anticipated increase in Earth's temperature, caused by carbon dioxide (emitted by burning fossil fuels) trapping some of the radiation emitted by the surface.
Term
Greenwich Mean Time
Definition
The time in that time zone encompassing the prime meridian, or at 0 longitude.
Term
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Definition
The value of the total output of goods and services produced in a country in a given time period (normally one year).
Term
Guest Workers
Definition
Workers who migrate to the MDCs of Northern and Western Europe, usually from Southern and Eastern Europe or from North Africa, in search of higher-paying jobs.
Term
Habit
Definition
A repetitive act performed by a particular individual.
Term
Hearth
Definition
The region from which innovative ideas originate.
Term
Hierarchical Diffusion
Definition
The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places.
Term
Hierarchical Religion
Definition
A religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control.
Term
Horticulture
Definition
The growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
Term
Hull
Definition
The outer covering of a seed.
Term
Human Development Index (HDI)
Definition
Indicator of level of development for each country, constructed by the UN, combining income, literacy, education, and life expectancy.
Term
Hydroelectric Power
Definition
Power generated from moving water.
Term
Ideograms
Definition
The system of writing used in China and other East Asian countries in which each symbol represents n idea or a concept rather than a specific sound, as is the case with letters in English.
Term
Immigration
Definition
Migration TO a new location.
Term
Imperialism
Definition
Control of territory already occupied and organized by an indigenous society.
Term
Inanimate Power
Definition
Power supplied by machines.
Term
Industrial Revolution
Definition
A series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods.
Term
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)
Definition
The total number of deaths in a year among infants under one year old for every 1,000 live births in a society.
Term
Intensive Subsistence Agriculture
Definition
A form of subsistence agriculture in which farmers must expend a relatively large amount of effort to produce the maximum feasible yield from a parcel of land.
Term
Internal Migration
Definition
Permanent movement within a particular country.
Term
International Date Line
Definition
(shortened) An arc that mainly follows 180 longitude. When crossed heading east (toward America), the clock moves back 24 hours. When heading east (to Asia) the calendar moves one day ahead.
Term
International Migration
Definition
Permanent movement from one country to another.
Term
Interregional Migration
Definition
Permanent movement from one region of a country to another.
Term
Intervening Obstacle
Definition
An environmental or cultural feature of the landscape that hinders migration.
Term
Intraregional Migration
Definition
Permanent movement within one region of a country.
Term
Isogloss
Definition
A boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate.
Term
Isolated Language
Definition
A language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family.
Term
Labor-intensive Industry
Definition
An industry for which labor costs comprise a high percentage of total expenses.
Term
Landlocked State
Definition
A state that doesn't have a direct outlet to the sea.
Term
Land Ordinance of 1785
Definition
A law that divided much of the US into a system of townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers.
Term
Language
Definition
A system of communication through the use of speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.
Term
Language Branch
Definition
A collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago. Differences are not as extensive or old as with language families, and archaeological evidence can confirm that the branches derived from the same family. 
Term
Language Family
Definition
A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history.
Term
Language Group
Definition
A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.
Term
Latitude
Definition
The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on the globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator.
Term
Less Developed Country (LDC)
Definition
Also known as a developing country, a country that is at a relatively early stage in the process of economic development.
Term
Life Expectancy
Definition
The average number of years an individual can be expected to live, given current social, economic, and medical conditions. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live.
Term
Lingua Franca
Definition
A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.
Term
Literacy Rate
Definition
The percentage of a country's people who can read and write.
Term
Literary Tradition
Definition
A language that is written as well as spoken.
Term
Location
Definition
The position of anything on Earth's surface.
Term
Longitude
Definition
The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian.
Term
Map 
Definition
A two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth's surface or a portion of it.
Term
Maquiladora
Definition
Factories built by US companies in Mexico near the US border, to take advantage of much lower labor costs in Mexico.
Term
Market Area (or hinterland)
Definition
The area surrounding a central place, from which people are attracted to use the place's goods and services.
Term
Medical Revolution
Definition
Medical technology invented in Europe and North America that is diffused to the poorer countries of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Improved medical practices have eliminated many of the traditional causes of death in poorer countries and enabled more people to live longer  and healthier lives.
Term
Mental Map
Definition
An internal representation of a portion of Earth's surface based on what an individual knows about a place, containing personal impressions of what is in a place and where places are located.
Term
Meridian
Definition
An arc drawn on a map between the North and South poles.
Term
Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
Definition
In the US, a central city of at least 50,000 population, the county within which the city is located, and adjacent counties meeting one of several tests indicating a functional connection to the central city.
Term
Micropolitan Statistical Area
Definition
An urbanized area of between 10,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, the county in which its found, and adjacent counties tied to the city.
Term
Microstate
Definition
A state that encompasses a very small land area.
Term
Migration
Definition
Form of relocation diffusion involving permanent move to a new location.
Term
Migration Transition
Definition
Change in the migration pattern in a society that results from industrialization, population growth, and other social and economic changes that also produce the demographic transition.
Term
Milkshed
Definition
The area surrounding a city from which milk is supplied.
Term
Missionary
Definition
An individual who helps to diffuse a universalizing religion.
Term
Mobility
Definition
All types of movement from one location to another.
Term
Monotheism
Definition
The doctrine or belief of the existence of only one god.
Term
More Developed Country (MDC)
Definition
Also known as a relatively developed country or a developed country, a country that has progressed relatively far along a continuum of development.
Term
Multi-ethnic State 
Definition
State that contains more than one ethnicity.
Term
Multinational State
Definition
State that contains two or more ethnic groups with traditions of self-determination that agree to coexist peacefully by recognizing each other as distinct nationalities.
Term
Multiple Nuclei Model
Definition
A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a collection of nodes of activities.
Term
Nationlism
Definition
Loyalty and devotion to a particular nationality.
Term
Nationality
Definition
Identity with a group of people that share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular place as a result of being born there.
Term
Nation-state
Definition
A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality.
Term
Natural Increase Rate (NIR)
Definition
The percentage growth of a population in a year, computed as the crude birth rate minus the crude death rate.
Term
Net Migration
Definition
The difference between the level of immigration and the level of emigration.
Term
New International Division of Labor
Definition
Transfer of some types of jobs, especially those requiring low-paid less skilled workers, from more developed to less developed countries.
Term
Nonbasic Industries
Definition
Industries that sell their products primarily to consumers in the community.
Term
Nonferrous
Definition
Metals utilized to make products other than iron and steel.
Term
Nonrenewable Energy 
Definition
A source of energy that is a finite supply capable of being exhausted.
Term
Official Language
Definition
The language adopted for use by the government for the conduct of business and publication of documents.
Term
Overpopulation
Definition
The number of people living in an area exceeds the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard of living.
Term
Ozone
Definition
A gas that absorbs ultraviolet solar radiation, found in the stratosphere, a zone between 9 to 30 miles above Earth's surface.
Term
Paddy
Definition
Malay word for wet rice, commonly but incorrectly used to describe a sawah.
Term
Pagan
Definition
A follower of a polytheistic religion in ancient times.
Term
Pandemic
Definition
Disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects a high proportion of the population.
Term
Parallel
Definition
A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians.
Term
Passive Solar Energy  Systems
Definition
Solar energy system that collects energy without the use of mechanical devices.
Term
Pastoral Nomadism
Definition
A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals.
Term
Pasture
Definition
Grass or other plants grown for feeding grazing animals, as well as land used for grazing.
Term
Pattern
Definition
The geometric or regular arrangement of something in a study area.
Term
Perforated State
Definition
A state that completely surrounds another one.
Term
Peripheral Model
Definition
A model of North America urban areas consisting of an inner city surrounded by large suburban residential and business areas tied together by a beltway or ring road.
Term
Personal Services
Definition
Services that provide for the well-being and personal improvement of individual consumers.
Term
Photochemical Smog
Definition
An atmospheric condition formed through a combination of weather conditions and pollution, especially from motor vehicles.
Term
Photovoltaic Cell
Definition
Solar energy cells, usually made from silicon, that collect solar rays to generate electricity.
Term
Physiological Density
Definition
The number of people per unit of area of arable land.
Term
Pidgin Language
Definition
A form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca, used for communications among speakers  of two different languages.
Term
Pilgrimage
Definition
A journey to a place considered scared for religious purposes.
Term
Place
Definition
A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular character.
Term
Plantation
Definition
A large farm in tropical and subtropical climates that specializes in the production of one or two crops for sale, usually to a more developed country.
Term
Polder
Definition
Land created by the Dutch by draining water from an area.
Term
Pollution
Definition
Addition of more waste than a resource can accommodate.
Term
Polytheism
Definition
Belief in or worship of more than one god.
Term
Popular Culture
Definition
Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics.
Term
Population Pyramid
Definition
A bar graph representing the distribution of population by age and sex. 
Term
Possibilism
Definition
The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives.
Term
Post-Fordist Production
Definition
Adoption by companies of flexible work rules, such as the allocation of workers to teams that perform a variety of tasks.
Term
Potential Reserve
Definition
The amount of energy in deposits not yet identified but thought to exist.
Term
Preservation
Definition
Maintenance of a resource in its present condition, with as little human impact as possible.
Term
Primary Sector
Definition
The portion of the economy concerned with the direct extraction of materials from Earth's surface, generally through agriculture, although sometimes by mining, fishing, and forestry.
Term
Primate City
Definition
The largest settlement in a country, if it has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement.
Term
Primate City Rule
Definition
A pattern of settlements in a country, such that the largest settlement has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement.
Term
Prime Agricultural Land
Definition
The most productive farmland.
Term
Prime Meridian
Definition
The meridian, designated at 0 longitude, which passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.
Term
Principal Meridian
Definition
A north-south line designated in the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the surveying and numbering of townships in the US.
Term
Producer Services
Definition
Services that primarily help people conduct business.
Term
Productivity
Definition
The value of a particular product compared to the amount of labor needed to make it.
Term
Projection
Definition
The system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map.
Term
Prorupted State
Definition
An otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension.
Term
Proven Reserve
Definition
The amount of a resource remaining in discovered deposits.
Term
Public Housing
Definition
Housing owned by the government; in the US, it is rented to low-income residents, and the rents are set at 30% of the families' income.
Term
Public Services
Definition
Services offered by the government to provide security and protection for citizens and businesses.
Term
Pull Factors
Definition
Factors that induce people to move to a new location.
Term
Push Factors
Definition
Factors that induce people to leave old residences.
Term
Quota
Definition
In reference to migration, a law that places maximum limits on the number of people who can immigrate to a country each year.
Term
Race
Definition
Identity with a group of people descended from a common ancestor.
Term
Racism
Definition
Belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
Term
Racist
Definition
A person who suscribes to the beliefs of racism.
Term
Radioactive Waste
Definition
Particles from a nuclear reaction that emit radiation; contact with such particle may be harmful or lethal to people and must therefore be safely stored for thousands of years. 
Term
Ranching
Definition
A form of commercial agriculture in which livestock graze over an extensive area.
Term
Range (of a service)
Definition
The maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service.
Term
Rank-size Rule 
Definition
A pattern of settlements in a country, such that the Nth largest settlement is 1/N the population of the largest settlement.
Term
Reaper
Definition
A machine that cuts grain standing in the field.
Term
Recycling
Definition
The separation, collection, processing, marketing, and reuse of unwanted material.
Term
Redlining
Definition
A process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries.
Term
Refugees
Definition
People who are forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion.
Term
Region
Definition
An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features.
Term
Regional (or cultural landscape) Studies
Definition
An approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area.
Term
Relocation Diffusion
Definition
The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.
Term
Remote Sensing
Definition
The acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods.
Term
Renewable Energy
Definition
A resource that has a theoretically unlimited supply and is not depleted when used by humans.
Term
Resource
Definition
A substance in the environment that is useful to people, is economically and technologically feasible to access, and is socially acceptable to use.
Term
Retail Services
Definition
Services that provide goods for sale to consumers.
Term
Ridge Tillage
Definition
System of planting crops on ridge tops, in order to reduce farm production costs and promote greater soil conservation.
Term
Right-to-work State
Definition
A US state that has passed a law preventing a union and company from negotiating a contract that requires workers to join a union as a condition of employment.
Term
Rush (or peak) Hour
Definition
The four consecutive 15-minute periods in the morning and evening with the heaviest volumes of traffic.
Term
Sanitary Landfill
Definition
A place to deposit solid waste, where a layer of earth is bulldozed over garbage each day to reduce emissions of gases and odors from the decaying trash, to minimize fires, and to discourage vermin.
Term
Sawah
Definition
A flooded field for growing rice.
Term
Scale
Definition
Generally, the relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth  as a whole, specifically the relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface.
Term
Secondary Sector
Definition
The portion of the economy concerned with manufacturing useful products through processing, transforming, and assembling raw materials.
Term
Sect
Definition
A relatively small group that has broken away from an established denomination.
Term
Section
Definition
A square normally 1 mile on a side. The Land Ordinance of 1785 divided townships in the US into 36 sections.
Term
Sector Model
Definition
A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a series of sectors, or wedges, radiating out from the CBD.
Term
Seed Agriculture
Definition
Reproduction of plants through annual introduction of seeds, which result from sexual fertilization.
Term
Self-determination
Definition
Concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves.
Term
Service
Definition
Any activity that fulfills a human want or need and returns money to those who provide it.
Term
Settlement
Definition
A permanent collection of buildings and inhabitants.
Term
Sex Ratio
Definition
The number of males per 100 females in the population.
Term
Sharecropper
Definition
A person who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent and repays loans by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops.
Term
Shifting Cultivation
Definition
A form of subsistence agriculture in which people shift activity from one field to another; each field is used for crops for a relatively few years and left fallow for a relatively long period.
Term
Site
Definition
The physical character of a place.
Term
Site Factors
Definition
Location factors related to the costs of factors of production inside the plant, such as land, labor, and capital.
Term
Situation
Definition
The location of a place relative to other places.
Term
Situation Factors
Definition
Location factors related to the transportation of materials into and from a factory.
Term
Slash-and-burn Agriculture
Definition
Another name for shifting cultivation, so named because fields are cleared  by slashing the vegetation and burning the debris.
Term
Solstice
Definition
Time when the Sun is farthest from the equator.
Term
Sovereignty
Definition
Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states.
Term
Space
Definition
The physical gap or interval between two objects.
Term
Space-time Compression
Definition
The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation systems.
Term
Sprawl
Definition
Development of new housing sites at relatively low density  and at locations that are not contiguous to the existing built-up area.
Term
Spring Wheat
Definition
Wheat planted in the spring and harvested in the late summer.
Term
Squatter Settlement
Definition
An area within a city in a less developed country in which people illegally establish residences on land they do not own or rent and erect homemade structures.
Term
Standard Language
Definition
The form of a language used for official government business, education, and mass communications.
Term
State
Definition
An area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government with control over its internal and foreign affairs.
Term
Stimulus Diffusion
Definition
The spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected.
Term
Structural Adjustment Program
Definition
Economic policies imposed on less developed countries by international agencies to create conditions encouraging trade, such as raising taxes, reducing government spending, controlling inflation, selling publicly owned utilities to private corporations, and charging citizens more for services
Term
Subsistence Agriculture
Definition
Agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer's family.
Term
Sustainable Agriculture
Definition
Farming methods that preserve long-term productivity of land and minimize pollution, typically by rotating soil-restoring crops with cash crops and reducing inputs of fertilizer and pesticides.
Term
Sustainable Development
Definition
The level of development that can be maintained in a country without depleting resources to the extent that future generations will be unable to achieve a comparable level of development.
Term
Swidden
Definition
A patch of land cleared for planting through slashing and burning.
Term
Taboo
Definition
A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.
Term
Tertiary Sector
Definition
The portion of the economy concerned with transportation, communications, and utilities, sometimes extended to the provision of all goods and services to people in exchange for payment.
Term
Textile
Definition
A fabric made by weaving, used in making clothing.
Term
Thresh
Definition
To beat out grain from stalks by trampling it.
Term
Threshold
Definition
The minimum number of people needed to support the service.
Term
Toponym
Definition
The name given to a portion of Earth's surface.
Term
Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
Definition
The average number of children a women will have throughout her childbearing years.
Term
Township
Definition
A square normally 6 miles on a side. The Land Ordinance of 1785 divided much of the US into a series of townships.
Term
Trading Bloc
Definition
A group of neighboring countries that promote trade with each other and erect barriers to limit trade with other blocs.
Term
Transhumance
Definition
The seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pastures.
Term
Transnational Corporation
Definition
A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located.
Term
Transportation and Information Services
Definition
Services that diffuse and distribute services.
Term
Truck Farming
Definition
Commercial gardening and fruit farming, so named because TRUCK was Middle English word meaning BARTERING or the exchange of commodities.
Term
Underclass
Definition
A group in society prevented from participating in the material benefits of a more developed society because of a variety of social and economic characteristics.
Term
Undocumented Immigrants
Definition
People who enter a country without proper documents.
Term
Uneven Development
Definition
The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy.
Term
Unitary State
Definition
An internal organization of a state that places most power in the hands of central government officials.
Term
Universalizing Religion
Definition
A religion that attempts to appeal to all people, not just those living in a particular location.
Term
Urban Renewal 
Definition
Program in which cities identify blighted inner-city neighborhoods, acquire the properties from private owners, relocate the residents and businesses, clear the site, build new roads and utilities, and turn the land over to private developers.
Term
Urbanization
Definition
An increase in the percentage and in the number of people living in urban settlements.
Term
Urbanized Area
Definition
In the US, a central city plus its contiguous built-up suburbs.
Term
Value Added
Definition
The gross value of the product minus the costs of raw materials and energy.
Term
Vegetative Planting
Definition
Reproduction of plants by direct cloning from existing plants.
Term
Vernacular Region (or perceptual region)
Definition
An area that people believe to exist as part of their cultural identity.
Term
Voluntary Migration
Definition
Permanent movement undertaken by choice.
Term
Vulgar Latin
Definition
A form of Latin used in daily conversation by ancient Romans, as opposed to the standard dialect, which was used for official documents.
Term
Wet Rice
Definition
Rice planted on dryland in a nursery, then moved to a deliberately flooded field to promote growth.
Term
Winnow
Definition
To remove chaff by allowing it to be blown away by the wind.
Term
Winter Wheat
Definition
Wheat planted in the fall and harvested in the early summer.
Term
Zero Population Growth (ZPG)
Definition
A decline of the total fertility rate to the point where the natural increase rate equals zero.
Term
Zoning Ordinance
Definition
A law that limits the permitted uses of land and maximum density of development in a community.
Supporting users have an ad free experience!