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| Group of languages with a shared but usually distant origin. |
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| A "common language" prevalent in a given area; a second language that can be spoken and understood by many peoples, although they speak other languages at home. |
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| A description of the international system resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union in which the balance of nuclear power theoretically no longer determines the destinies of states. |
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| The geographic study of regions and regional distinctions, as discussed on pp 5-6. |
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| The regional position or situation of a place relative to the position of other places. Distance, accessibility, and connectivity affect relative location. |
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| The position or place of a certain item on the surgace of the Earth as expressed in degrees, minutes, and seconds of latitude(0-90) north or south of the equator, and longitude(0-180) east or west of the prime meridian passing through Greenwich, England. |
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| A type of region marked by a certain degree of homogeneity in one or more phenomena; also called uniform region or homogeneous region. |
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| A region marked less by its sameness than its dynamic internal structure; because it usually focuses on a central node, also called nodal region or focal region. |
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| Literall, "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. In the case of a port city, the hinterland also includes the inland area whose trade flows through that port. |
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| Representational of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction or generalization. In cartography, the ratio of map distance to ground distance; inducated 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 local area no bigger than a county. |
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| The slow movement of continents controlled by the processes assoctiated with plate tectonics. |
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| Plates are bonded portions of the Earth's mantle and crust, averaging 100 kilometers (60miles) in thickness. More than a dozen such plates exist, most of continental proportions, and they are in motion. Where they meet one slides under the other, crumpling the surface crust and producing significant volcanic and earthquake activity; a major mountain-building force. |
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| In plate tectonics, the process that occurs when an oceanic plate converges head-on with a plate carrying a continental landmass at its leading edge. The lighter continental plate overrides the denser oceanic plate and pushes it downward. |
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| Zone of crustal instability along tectonic plate boundaries, marked by earthquakes and volcanic activity, that rind the Pacific Ocean basin. |
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| A stretch of geologic time during which the Earth's average atmospheric temperature is lowered; casues the equatorward expansion of continental ice sheets in teh higher latitudes and the growth of mountain glaciers in and around the highlands of the lower latitudes. |
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| The long-term conditions(over at least 30 yrs) 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. |
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| A formal region characterized by the uniformity of the climate type within it. |
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| When spelled with a lower-case 'm', a synonym for conurbation, one of the large coalescing supercities forming in diverse parts of the world. When capitalized, refers specifically to the multimetropolitan corridor that extends along the northeastern US seaboard from north of Boston to south of Washington. |
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| The sum total of the knowledge, attitudes, and habitual behavior patterns shared and transmitted by the members of a society. This is anthropologist Ralph Linton's definition; hundreds of others exist. |
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| 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 landscape is modified into the cultural landscape, forming an interacting unity between the two. |
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| Central Business District (CBD) |
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| The downtown heart of a central city, the CBD is marked by high land values, a concentration of business and commerce and the clustering of the tallest buildings. |
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| The combination of a people's culture and racial ancestry. |
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| A politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign gvt and is recognized by a significant portion of the international community. A state must also contain a permant resident population, an organized economy, and a functioning internal circulation system. |
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| a state consisting of a legally defined territory inhabited by a population governed from a capital city by a representative government. |
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| 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. |
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| The contrasting spatial characteristics of, and linkages between, the have(core) and have-not(periphery) components of a national or regional system. |
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| The spatial unevenness in standard of living that occurs withing a country, whose "average," overall income statistics invariably mask the differences that exist between teh extremes of the weatlhy core and the poorer periphery. |
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| The most meaningful distinction that can now be made to classify a country's level of economic development. Takes into account geographic location, natrual resources, government, political stability, productive skills, and much more. |
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| The term used by devoloping countries to underscore that the entrenched colonial system of international exchange and capital flow has not changed in the postcolonial era -- thereby perpetuating the huge economic advantages of the developed world. |
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| The gradual reducation of regional contrasts at the world scale, resulting from increasing internation cultral, economic, and political exchanges. |
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| topical geography; cultural, political, economic geography, and the like. |
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| 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. Ex: Alaska |
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| a country whose population possesses a substantial degree of cultrual 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. |
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| 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 cultrual attributes. Such homogeneity actually prevails within every few states. |
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| a term employed to designate forces that tend to divide a country -- such as internal religious, linguistic, ethnic, or ideological differences. |
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| Forces that unite and bind a country together -- such as a strong national culture, shared ideological objectives, and a common faith. |
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| a country's largest city -- ranking atop the urban hierarchy -- most expressive of the national culture and usually (but not always) the capital city as well. |
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| a venture involving three or more states -- political, economic, and/or cultural cooperation to promote shared objectives. The European Union is one such organization. |
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| the process whereby regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central gvt. |
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| Rhone-Alpes(France), Baden-Wurttemberg(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 scale as well. |
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| genral term used to identify a large multi-metroplitan complex formed by the coalescence of two or more major urban areas. The Atlantic Seaboard Megalopolis, extending along the northeastern US coast from southern Maine to VA, is a classic example. |
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| a place, usually a port city, where goods are imported, stored and transshipped; a break-of-bulk point. |
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| region caught between stronger, colliding external cultural-political forces, under persistant stress, and often fragmented by aggressive rivals. Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia are classic examples. |
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| The fragmentation of a region into smaller, often hostile political units. |
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| a policy of cultural extension and potential political expansion by a state aimed at a community of its nationls living in a neighboring state. |
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| the variation of the continental effect on air temperatures in teh 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. |
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| the treeless plain that lies along the Arctic shore in northen-most Russia and Canada, whose vegetation consists of mosses, lichens, and certain hardy grasses. |
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| permanently frozen water in the near-surface soil and bedrock of cold environments, producing the efect of completely frozen ground. Surface can thaw during brief warm season. |
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| the subarctic, mostly coniferous snowforest that blankets northern Russia and Canada south of the tundra that lines the Arctic shore. |
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