AP Human Geography Chapter 1 and Europe Study Guide:

The way you look and interpret geography

Geographic Information System.

Compares a variety of spatial data by creating digital representations of human and physical geographic traits.

Location, Place, Human Environment Interactions, Movement, and Regions

Where is it?

Abosolute- the exact location on a map using longitude and latitude.
Relative- the location in relation to its surroundings

Physical Characteristics- mountains, rivers, vegetation
Human Characteristics- architecture, highways, culture

What makes this place unique?

How do we “humans” interact with our environment

The changes that we make and the results of the changes. When we build homes in wooded areas, we force wild animals to find another place to live (bears in backyards, alligators in swimming pools)

How do goods, people, and ideas move and influence places?

Cultural Diffusion: religion, food, clothes
McDonald’s in India
Starbucks in the Forbidden City

How things are grouped together.

Functional, Formal, Perceptual, Midwest, Great Plains, Southwest, Pacific Northwest

A region marked less by sameness than its dynamic internal structure.

Marked by a certain degree of homogeneity in one or more phenomena; also called uniform.

Intellectual constructs designed to understand the natural and distribution of phenomena in human geography. Examples: Northwest United States, New England, Northeast, United States Pacific= Regions can overlap.

Traits that define a region.

Study of physical phenomena on earth such as mountains, climate, and environmental change.

Study of human phenomena on earth such as language, religion, and identity; Study of human use and understanding of earth and the process of what the effect is.

Feelings evoked by people as a result of certain experiences and memories associated with a particular place.

Degree of direct linkage direct between one particular location and other locations in a transport network.

The visible imprint of human activity of human activity and culture on landscape. The layers of buildings, forms, and artifacts sequentially imprinted on the landscape by the activities of various human occupants.

Cultural geographer defined and delimited the perceptual regions, identified 12 major perceptual regions. He analyzed the telephone directories of 276 metropolitan areas in US/Canada.

Professor who wrote an article entitled “Recent-Developments in Cultural Geography”, argued that cultural landscapes are comprised of the “forms superimposed on the physical landscape” by human activity

A single element of normal practice in a culture, such as wearing of a turban.

A related set of cultural traits, such as prevailing dress codes and cooking and eating utensils.

Prevailing cultural attitude rendering certain innovations, ideas, or practices unacceptable or unadoptable in that particular culture. Examples: Prohibition against alcoholic beverages; Can pose powerful obstacles to the spread of ideas as well as artifacts.

The spatial spreading or dissemination of a culture element (such as technological innovation) or some other phenomenon(disease outbreak)

An innovation or idea develops in a hearth and remains strong there while also spreading outward Ex: spread of Islam from its hearth on the Arabian peninsula to Egypt and North Africa through South West Asia and into West Africa

Acultural adaptation is created as a result of the introduction of a cultural trait from another place Ex: introduction of hamburgers to india, but hindu religion prohibited beef, so vegetable burger adaptation stimulated by diffusion of hamburger

Which an idea or innovation spreads by passing first among the most connected places or people Ex: spread of crocs

Form of expansion diffusion in which nearly all adjacent individuals and places are affected Ex: spread of Islam, disease

Theory that the environment sets certain constraints or limitations and opportunities for people living in that region.

Theory that the features of the environment limit some human actions.

The multiple interactions and relationships between a culture and the national environment.

A famous individual that revealed how time, as well as distance, affects individual human behavior and the diffusion of people and ideas.

The attempted reconciliations of different principles, practices, in philosophy or religion.

The farther way away and the longer it takes to touch an area, the least likely it will be effective.

Culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations and that social problems and conflicts are caused by this lag.

Title, Orientation, Date, Legend, Author, Legend, Scale, Index, Grid, Source.

A map in which thematic mapping variable, such as travel time or gross national product- is substituted for land area or distance

A type of map or chart especially designed to show a particular theme connected with a specific geographic area, ex. Physical and economic

A politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign government and is recognized by a significant portion of the international community. Must have a defined territory, a permanent population, a government, and is recognized by other states.

Encompassing all the citizens of a state. Tend to refer to a tightly knit group of people possessing bonds of language, ethnicity, religion, and other shared cultural attributes. Such homogeneity actually prevails with few states.

A recognized member of the modern state system possessing formal sovereignty and occupied by a people who see themselves as a single, united nation. Most nations and states aspire to this form but it is realized that almost nowhere. Nonetheless in common parlance, it is used as a synonym for country or state.

A process whereby regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government.

A venture involving three or more nation-states involving formal political, economic, and/or cultural cooperation to promote shared objective. Ex: The EU

The expansion of economic, political, and cultural processes to the point that they become global and in scale and impact. The processes of globalization transcend state boundaries, and have outcomes that vary across places and scales.

Processes that incorporate higher levels of education, higher salaries, and more technology; generate more wealth than periphery processes in the world-economy.

Processes that incorporate lower levels of education, lower salaries, and less technology; and generate less wealth than core processes in the world-economy.

The European Union- Supranational

Fear of strangers or strange things.

How much of the world is malnourished?

Poverty, failure of food, distribution systems, and cultural practices that favor men over men and children.