AP Human Geography

• absolute location


  the coordinates of a place using latitude and longitude
• accessibility


  the ability to reach a place with respect to another place
• agricultural density


  the number of farmers per unit of farmland
• arithmetic density


  the total number of objects in an area
• cartography


  the science of map-making
• choropleth map


  a thematic map using shading to show a pattern of a variable (the darker the shading, the higher the concentration of the variable)
• concentration


  the extent of a feature's spread over space
• connectivity


  relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space
• contagious diffusion


  the rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population
• core-periphery


  central, wealthy, technologically advanced countries vs. less-developed, poor, and dependant countries
• cultural ecology


  the geographic study of human-environment relationships
• cultural landscape


  forms superimposed on the physical environment by humans
• density


  the frequency with which something occurs in space
• diffusion


  the process by which a characteristic spreads across space from one place to another over time
• distance decay


  contact diminishes with increasing distance and eventually disappears
• distribution


  the arrangement of a feature in space
• environmental determinism


  the theory that the physical environment causes social development
• equator


  the parallel with the largest circumference and the place with 12 hours of daylight (0 degrees latitude)
• Eratosthenes


  created the word geography, accepted the Earth is sperical, calculated its circumference, and created a map of the Earth dividing it into climatic regions
• expansion diffusion


  the pread of a feature from one place to another in a snowballing process
• formal region


  an area within which everyone shares in a common one or more distinctive characteristics
• functional region


  an area organized around a node or central point
• GIS


  a computer system that can capture, store, query, analyze, and display geographic data
• globalization


  a force or process that involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope
• GPS


  a system that accurately determines the precise position of something on Earth
• Greenwich Mean Time


  the master reference time for all points on Earth; the time at the prime meridian
• hearth


  the place from which an innovation originates
• hierarchical diffusion


  the spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority to other persons or places
• human geography


  the study of where and why human activities are located where they are
• International Date Line


  a line following the 180 degree latitude line where when you cross it going west, you set the clock forward by 24 hours
• isoline map


  a thematic map with continuous lines joining points of the same value
• Land Ordinance Act of 1785


  divided the West into townships and ranges to help with the buying and selling of land
• latitude


  the numbering system to indicate the location of a parallel
• location


  the position that something occupies on Earth's surface
• longitude


  a numbering system used to locate each meridian on Earth's surface
• map


  a two-dimensional or flat-scale model of Earth's surface, or a portion of it
• mental map


  an internal representation of a portion of Earth's surface
• Mercator projection


  rectangular-shaped maps with little shape and direction distortion, but a lot of size distortion
• meridian


  an arc drawnbetween the North and South poles
• pattern


  the geometric arrangement of objects in space