Human Geo Vocab 1

Front 1

AGRICULTURAL DENSITY

Back 1

ratio of number of farmers to total amount of land suitable for agriculture

Front 2

ARITHMETIC DENSITY

Back 2

total number of people divided by the total land area

Front 3

BASE LINE

Back 3

east-west line designated under the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the surveying and numbering of townships in the US

Front 4

CARTOGRAPHY

Back 4

science of making maps

Front 5

CONCENTRATION

Back 5

spread of something over a given area

Front 6

CONNECTIONS

Back 6

relationships among people and objects across space

Front 7

CONTAGIOUS DIFFUSION

Back 7

rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population

Front 8

CULTURAL ECOLOGY

Back 8

geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships

Front 9

CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Back 9

fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group

Front 10

CULTURE

Back 10

body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group of people's distinct tradition

Front 11

DENSITY

Back 11

frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area

Front 12

DIFFUSION

Back 12

the process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time

Front 13

DISTANCE DECAY

Back 13

diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin

Front 14

DISTRIBUTION

Back 14

arrangement of something across earth's surface

Front 15

ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM

Back 15

19th and early 20th cent. approach to the study of geography
geography was the study of how the physical environment caused human activities

Front 16

EXPANSION DIFFUSION

Back 16

spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process

Front 17

FORMAL REGION

Back 17

[also uniform or homogeneous region]
area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics

Front 18

FUNCTIONAL REGION

Back 18

[also nodal region]
area organized around a node or focal point

Front 19

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM [GIS]

Back 19

computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data

Front 20

GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM [GPS]

Back 20

system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers

Front 21

GLOBALIZATION

Back 21

actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in mkaing something worldwide in scope

Front 22

GREENWICH MEAN TIME

Back 22

time in the time zone encompassing the prime meridian

Front 23

HEARTH

Back 23

region from which innovative ideas originate

Front 24

HIERARCHICAL DIFFUSION

Back 24

religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control

Front 25

INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE

Back 25

arc that for the most part follows 180 longitude. When you cross it heading east toward America, the clock moves back a day. when crossing it heading west, toward asia, it moves ahead one day.

Front 26

LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785

Back 26

law that divided much of the United States into a system of townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers

Front 27

LATITUDE

Back 27

numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator

Front 28

LOCATION

Back 28

position of anything on the Earth's surface

Front 29

LONGITUDE

Back 29

numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian.

Front 30

MAP

Back 30

two-dimensional representation of Earth's surface or a portion of it

Front 31

MENTAL MAP

Back 31

internal representation of a portion of Earth's surface based on what an individual knows about a place

Front 32

MERIDIAN

Back 32

an arc drawn on a map between the north and south poles

Front 33

PARALLEL

Back 33

circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians

Front 34

PATTERN

Back 34

geometric or regular arrangement of something in a study area

Front 35

PHYSIOLOGICAL DENSITY

Back 35

number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture

Front 36

POLDER

Back 36

land created by the dutch by draining water from an area

Front 37

POSSIBILISM

Back 37

theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the environment and choose a course of action

Front 38

PRIME MERIDIAN

Back 38

meridian at 0 longitude that passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England

Front 39

PRINCIPAL MERIDIAN

Back 39

north-south line designated in the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the surveying and numbering of townships in the US

Front 40

PROJECTION

Back 40

system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map

Front 41

REGION

Back 41

an area distiguished by a unique combination of trends or features

Front 42

REGIONAL STUDIES

Back 42

[or cultural landscape studies]
approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area

Front 43

RELOCATION DIFFUSION

Back 43

spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another

Front 44

REMOTE SENSING

Back 44

acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods

Front 45

RESOURCE

Back 45

substance in the environment that is useful to people, is economically and technologically feasible to access, and is socially acceptable to use.

Front 46

SCALE

Back 46

relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface

Front 47

SECTION

Back 47

square normally one mile on a side. Land Ordinance of 1785 divided townships in the US into 36 sections

Front 48

SITE

Back 48

physical character of a place

Front 49

SITUATION

Back 49

location of a place relative to other places

Front 50

SPACE

Back 50

physical gap or interval between two objects

Front 51

SPACE-TIME COMPRESSION

Back 51

reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation systems

Front 52

STIMULUS DIFFUSION

Back 52

spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected

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TOPONYM

Back 53

name given to a portion of Earth's surface

Front 54

TOWNSHIP

Back 54

square normally six miles on each side. Land Ordinance of 1785 divided much of the US into a series of townships

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TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION

Back 55

a company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located

Front 56

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

Back 56

increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy

Front 57

VERNACULAR REGION

Back 57

[or perceptual]
area that people believe to exist as part of their cultural identity