World Geography
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Created by:
carrie_heath13 on May 30, 2012
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126 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Size of Russia | crosses 11 time zones, largest country in the world, 33% Europe & 50% Asia |
| Northern European Plain | provides good agricultural land, chernozem located here; 75% of population lives here |
| Caucasus Mountains | Separates Caspian Sea from the Black Sea |
| Ural Mountains | separates Russia into a European and Asian section |
| Kolymar Range | dividing range between central siberian plateau and Russian far east |
| Verkhoyansk Range | a place in Siberia with very cold temperatures |
| tundra | flat treeless lands forming a ring around the arctic ocean; arctic climate zone; in the arctic circle |
| steppe | temperate grassland - contains chernozem |
| taiga | belt of evergreen coniferous forests near the northern hemisphere |
| climate factors of Russia | continentality; size |
| Issues over Aral Sea | Virgin and Idles Program is causing it to dry up; losing water due to irrigation, pollution is causing spread of diseases |
| Russian Revolution | ended rule of czars |
| Mongol Invasion | 1200s - halted Russian growth and controlled region until late 1400s |
| WW1 | 20 million people killed due to lack of supplies and weapons; Russian Revolution |
| Cold War | between US and Soviet Union; didnt turn into a war |
| Ivan the Great | ended Mongol rule and began to rebuild Russia |
| Gorbachev | soviet leader who gave more political and social power to Russia |
| Lenin | led communist party (first leader) ; took control of government and economy |
| Stalin | created pro-Soviet Union governments in eastern European countries |
| communism | created cold war; one person holds total power; command economy |
| free market economy | people control prices not government; supply and demand |
| conflicts in the caucasus mountains | many ethnic groups want to be independent; boundaries separating different ethnic groups |
| collective farms | taking private property to give to the government; an enormous farm in which a large team of farmers gather together to work together |
| nuclear power | chernobyl- not safe, but effective |
| privatization | the selling of government owned businesses to private citizens |
| nuclear legacy | nuclear explosion at chernobyl; many were affected and disabled |
| Nile River | worlds longest river; provided irrigation; 95% of Egypts citizens depend on it |
| Congo River | forms the continents largest network of waterways |
| Niger River | begins in west Africa and flows north to the Sahara and form an interior delta |
| Serengeti Plain | grassland in Northern Tanzania and southern Kenya; ideal for grazing - can't grow crops due to overgrazing |
| Sahara | largest desert in the world; in the tip of Africa |
| Canopy | highest part in rainforest; top of trees |
| Mount Kilimanjaro | highest peak in Africa; volcano |
| Desertification | creating a desert; expansion of dry conditions in to a moist area next to a desert |
| Niger Delta | contains most of NIgerias oil; rich in minerals |
| Sahel | the area the borders the Sahara and the Congo Rainforest |
| Lake Nesser | manmade lake created by the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River |
| Berlin Conference | Africa was split by European countries |
| Rai | music developed in 1920s by poor urban kids; now used as rebellion against Islamic fundamentalists |
| Souk | marketplaces where you bargain |
| Pandemic | an uncontrollable outbreak of diseases affecting a large population ex)AIDs |
| stateless society | people rely on family lineages to govern themselves rather than an elected government or a monarch |
| King Leoplod II | Controlled congo river and paved way of berlin conference; used forced labor to get his way |
| F.W. De Klerk | worked with Mandela to end apartheid; became president o f South Africa in 1989 |
| Mobutu Sese Seko | leader of DOC, brought countries under national control |
| Laurnet Kabila | leadership led to more violence in central africa; assassinated in 2001 |
| Nelson Mandela | president in 1996; led to end of apartheid with De Klerk; leader of ANC |
| Apartheid | complete separation of races under government consent |
| Economic base for most of Africa | primary sector of economy |
| Cholera | a fatal infection caused by a lack of clean water supply and lack of sanitation |
| HIV | caused life expectancy in Africa to drop; virus causing AIDS |
| Malaria | disease marked by chills and a fever; common in Africa- carried by mosquitoes |
| Tuberculosis | accompanied by AIDS; respiratory infection |
| brain drain | when all the smart people leave the country (doctors, scientists, etc.) |
| Dead Sea | saltwater lake, 9 times saltier than oceans - located at the mouth of the Jordan |
| Persian Gulf | extension of Arabian Sea situated between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran |
| Jordan River | provides one of the most precious resources in the region- boundary between Israel and Jordan |
| Red Sea | separates Saudi Arabia and Egypt (SW Asia from Africa) |
| Rub al-Khali | "empty quarter"- giant desert on Arabian Peninsula approx. the size of Texas |
| Negev | desert located in parts of Israel, produces crops throughout extensive irrigation |
| Golan Heights | hilly plateau overlooking the Jordan River and the sea of Galilee |
| Suez Canal | opening to Mediterranean; goods from Asia flow through here to ports in Europe and North Africa |
| West Bank | land on west side of the Jordan; originally controlled by Jordan- part of land set aside fro Arab Palestinians |
| Sinai Peninsula | smaller of the two peninsulas- connects Africa and Asia |
| Desalinization | removal of salt from ocean water |
| fossil water | water pumped from underground aquifers |
| oasis | an area in desert where vegetation is found because water is available - usually underground springs |
| Sunni | majority of Muslims; one of the 2 branches of Islam |
| Abdul al-Aziz | fruled most of the Arabian Peninsula and established Saudi Arabia |
| Muhammad | founder and a prophet of Islam who lived part of his life in the city of Mecca |
| colonization | system of settling new lands that remain under the government of their native land |
| Zionism | began in 19th century; movement to create and support a Jewish homeland in Palestine |
| Crusades | series of wars launched by European Christians in 1096 to capture the Holy Land from Muslims |
| Pilgrimage | muslims expected to make a pilgrimage to Mecca during their life |
| OPEC | organization of petroleum exporting countries; helps members control worldwide oil prices |
| PLO | Palestine Liberation Organization - made in 1960s to regain the land for Palestinian Arabs |
| strategic commodity | a resource so important that nations will go to war to ensure its supply |
| Kurds | ethnic group in SW Asia who died from a chemical weapons attack; don't have their own nation - stateless nation |
| stateless nations | nation of people that doesn't have a territory to legally occupy |
| right of return | the term used by Palestinians to describe their demand to reclaim the lands they lost in the 1948 birth of the state of Israel; a perennial sticking point in attempts to resolve the Palestinian- Israeli conflict. |
| monsoons | seasonal winds most important climate feature in SA; winter = dry, summer = wet |
| alluvial plains | lands that are rich farmlands - when the rivers overflow, the soil deposits here |
| Ganges River | sacred river to the people in South Asia- polluted |
| subcontinent | a large land mass that is smaller than a continent ex)India |
| Himalaya Mountains | system of mtn ranges across southern Asia; tallest mtns in the world |
| estuary | arm of the sea at the lower end of a river |
| deforestation | cutting down and clearing away of trees and forests |
| storm surge | high waters that swamp low-lying areas |
| atoll | islands that are the low lying tops of submerged volcanoes; surrounded by coral reefs |
| cyclone | a violent storm with fierce winds and heavy rain |
| caste system | the Aryan system of social classes |
| Mandalas | geometric designs that are symbols of the universe and aid in meditation |
| Ramadan | a month long period of fasting from sunrise to sunset |
| land reform | a more balanced distribution of land among farmers that now exists |
| Kashmir | region of northern India and Pakistan over which several wars have been fought |
| micro credit | policy makes small loans available to poor entrepreneurs |
| partition | division |
| basic necessities | food, clothing, water, shelter; people lack this in India |
| poverty in South Asia | economic challenges depend on farming, warfare, and rapid growth |
| conflict over the Indus River | site of some earliest civilizations |
| Kunlun Mountains | west of China, source of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers |
| Qinling Shandi Mountains | mtns in SE and east central China; divide northern part of china from southern part |
| Three Gorges Dam | built on Chang Jiang in China; worlds largest dam |
| PCBs | industrial pollutants that build up in animal tissue and can cause disease and birth defects |
| Pacific Rim | countries surrounding the Pacific Ocean; economic/social region |
| economic tiger | a nation that has rapid growth due to cheap, high tech. and aggressive exports |
| Three Kingdoms | the kingdoms formed in the peninsula of Korea by AD 300 (koguryo, paekche, sillia) |
| Mongolian Empire | Genghis Khan conquered Central Asia |
| shogun | general of the emperors army with the powers of a military dictator |
| samurai | "one who guards", served as a bodyguard of warriors loyal to the leader of the clan |
| Genghis Khan | "supreme conqueror" mongol ruler in ancient times |
| Boxer Rebellion | fighting Europeans and Chinese christians- multinational force of 20,000 soldiers finally defeated the Boxers |
| Taoism | believed in importance of preserving and restoring harmony in an individual and society |
| Daoism | go with the flow- destiny; the Dao is the natural path of the universe which os ever-changing; Deity is Lao Tzu |
| Confucius | chinese philosopher who lived about 500 BC - stressed importance of education in a society |
| Chaing Kai-shek | leader of nationalist party in china |
| Mao Zedong | led the communists to defeat the nationalist party in China- starts communism in china |
| Ring of Fire | chain of volcanoes that line the Pacific Rim- areas surrounding are threatened by earthquakes |
| settlement patterns in Australia | few people live here due to hot, dry, climate; people live on eastern coast |
| outback | the dry, unpopulated in land region of Australia |
| Great Dividing Range | chain of highlands |
| Great Barrier Reef | a 1,250 mile chain of more than 2,500 reefs and islands along Australias NE coast |
| outrigger canoe | a small ship used in the lagoons of islands where Pacific Islanders settled |
| voyager canoe | a large ship developed by Pacific Islanders to sail the ocean |
| problem with rabbits | overpopulation causes the land to be stripped of vegetation and then endanger other animals |
| bikini atoll | the isolated reef located in the marshall islands of the central pacific that was the site of US nuclear bomb tests |
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