| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Artifacts | The material manifestations of culture, including tools, housing, systems of land use, clothing, etc. |
| Built environment | The part of the physical landscape that represents material culture, including buildings, roads, bridges, etc. |
| Core | The zone of greatest concentration or homogeneity of the culture traits that characterize a region. |
| Cultural convergence | The tendency for cultures to become more alike as they increasingly share technology and organizational structures in a modern world united by improved transportation and communication. |
| Cultural landscape | Modifications to the environment by humans, including the built environment and agricultural systems, that reflect aspects of their culture. |
| Culture realm | A collective of culture regions sharing related culture systems; a major world area having sufficient distinctiveness to be perceived as set apart from other realms in terms of cultural characteristics and complexes. |
| Culture region | A formal or functional region within which common cultural characteristics prevail. |
| Culture hearth | A nuclear area within which an advanced and distinctive set of culture traits, ideas and technologies develops and from which there is diffusion of those characteristics and the cultural landscape features they imply. |
| Culture complex | A related set of culture traits descriptive of one aspect of a society’s behavior or activity (may be assoc. with religious beliefs or business practices). |
| Culture trait | A single, distinguishing feature of regular occurrence within a culture, such as the use of chopsticks or the observance of a particular caste system. A single element of learned behavior. |
| Custom | The frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that it becomes characteristic of the group of people performing the act. |
| Environmental determinism | A nineteenth- and early twentieth-century approach to the study of geography that argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities. |
| Environmental perception | The concept that people of different cultures will differently observe and interpret their environment and make different decisions about its nature, potentialities and use. |
| Folk culture | Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups. |
| Habit | A repetitive act performed by a particular individual. |
| Material culture | The tangible, physical items produced and used by members of a specific culture group and reflective of their traditions, lifestyles and technologies. |
| Mentifacts | The central, enduring elements of a culture expressing its values and beliefs, including language, religion, folklore, etc. |
| Popular culture | Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics. |
| Possibilism | The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives. |
| Sociofacts | The institutions and links between individuals and groups that unite a culture, including family structure and political, educational and religious institutions. |
| Taboo | A restriction on behavior imposed by a social custom. |
| Uniform landscape | The spatial expression of a popular custom in one location being similar to another. |
| Domain | The area outside of the core of a culture region in which the culture is still dominant but less intense. |
| Sphere | The zone of outer influence for a culture region. |
| George Perkins Marsh | Marsh argued that deforestation could lead to desertification. Referring to the clearing of once-lush lands surrounding the Mediterranean, he asserted "the operation of causes set in action by man has brought the face of the earth to desolation almost as complete as that of the moon." |
| W.D. Pattison | He claimed that geography drew from four distinct traditions: the earth-science tradition, the culture-environment tradition, the locational tradition, and the area-analysis tradition. |
| Carl Sauer | Geographer from the University of California at Bed defined the concept of cultural landscape as the fundamental un-graphical analysis. This landscape results from interaction between humans and the physical environment. Sauer argued that virtually no land escaped alteration by human activities |
| Demographic Transition Model | preindustrial/low education Stage 1, transition/higher formal education Stage 2, transition to professional education Stage 3, zero growth-dependent on immigration Stage 4, reverse growth-too dependent on immigration Stage 5 |
| Thomas Malthus | Population grows geometrically, while resources grow arithmetically; crisis point when population exceeds carrying capacity; mechanistic, apolitical; ignores distribution problems and technological innovation |
| Neo Malthusian | of or relating to Malthus or to his theory that population increases faster than its subsistence and that poverty results |
| World System Theory | Central vacuums resources and uses area around for labor core periphery |
| Rostows Stages of Development | traditional society Stage 1, preconditions for take-off Stage 2, take-off Stage 3, drive to maturity Stage 4, high mass consumption Stage 5 |
| Least Cost Theory | Theory that states that to profit well from agriculture the farms must have either a low production cost crop or be as close to market as possible so as to utilize the lowest possible transportation cost. |
| Von Thunens Theory | Transport costs vary with the bulkiness and perishability of the product. Product A is costly to transport but has a high market price and is therefore farmed near the city. Product B sells for less but has lower transport costs. At a certain distance, B becomes more profitable than A because of its lower transport costs. Eventually, product C, with still lower transport costs, becomes the most profitable product. The changing pattern of the most profitable produce is therefore seen as a series of land use rings around the city. |
| fieldwork | The study of geography by visiting places and observing the people that live there and how they react with the changes there. |
| human geography | The study of humans and their cultures, activities, and landscapes |
| Globalization | The expansion of economics, political and cultural processes to the point that they beome global in scale and impact. |
| physical geography | The spatial analysis of the sturcture of the earth and its features; plants, animals, climate..... |
| spatial | having to do with space and earth's surface. Sometimes synonym for geographic. |
| spatial distribution | location of geographic phenomena across space. |
| pattern | the design of spatial distribution |
| medical geography | the study of health and diseases with geographic perspective. |
| pandemic | an outbreak of disease that spreads world-wide. |
| epidemic | regional outbreak of a disease |
| spatial perspective | observing variations in geographic phenomena across space |
| five themes | location, human environment, region, place, movement |
| location | the geographical situation of people and things. |
| location theory | a logical attempt to explore the location pattern of an economic activity |
| human environment | reciprocal relationship between humans and environmnet |
| region | an area on the earht's surface that is marked |
| place | uniqueness of a location |
| sense of place | state of mind derived through the infusion of a place maybe by events that occured there. |
| perception of place | beliefs or understandings of a place through books or movies |
| movement | the mobility of people, goods, and ideas across the world |
| spatial interactions | interactions in earth's space |
| distance | measurement of space between two places |
| assessability | the degree of ease at which it is possible to reach a certain location |
| connectivity | the degree of direct linkage between one particular location and other locations in a transport network |
| landscape | the overall appearance of an area |
| cultural landscape | the visible imprint of human activity and culture on the landscape |
| sequent occupance | the notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place |
| cartography | the art and science of making maps |
| reference maps | maps that show the absolute location of places and geographic features |
| thematic maps | maps that tell stories |
| absolue location | a place expressed in degrees, longitude, latitude, north or south, the equator, and north, south, east, west |
| global positioning system (gps) | satelite-based system that tells you where you are |
| geocaching | a hunt for a cache, gps coordinates which are placed on the internet by another cache |
| relative location | the regional position or situation of a place relative to the position of other places |
| mental map | a map in your head |
| activity space | the space where everyday activities occur |
| remote sensing | collecting data through instruments that are distant from the area of object of study |
| geographic information system (gis) | a collection of computer hardware and software that permits spatial data to be collected |
| rescale | players at other scales support other positions |
| formal region | type of region marked by a certain homogenity is one or more phenomena |
| functional region | a region defined by the particular set of activities or interactions that occur within it |
| perceptional region | a region that only exists as a conceptualization or an idea and not as a physically demarcated entity |
| culture | the way you live and the people around you |
| cutlural trait | a single attribute of a culture |
| cultural complex | many different cultures many different traits |
| independent invention | a trait that many cultural hearths that develop independent of each other |
| culture diffusion | the process of discemination, teh spread of an idea or innovation from its source area to other places |
| time-distance decay | the combination of time and distance |
| cultural barriers | things in the culture that stop or slow down the research |
| expansion diffusion | the spread of an innovation or an idea through a population and the numbers of those influenced rapidly increase |
| contagious diffusion | the distance controls spreading of an illness through a local population |
| hierarchical diffusion | an idea innovation spreads by first among the most connected places or peoples |
| stimulus diffusion | a cultural adaptation is cheated as a result fo the introduction of a cultural trait from another place |
| relocation diffusion | teh regional positional or situation of a place relative to the position of other places |
| geographic concept | ways of seeing the world spatically that are used by geographers in answering research questions |
| environmental determinism | teh view that the natural environment has a controlling influence over various aspects of human life including cultural development |
| isotherm | line on a map connecting points equal temperature values |
| possibilism | geographic viewpoint - a response to determinism that holds the human decision making |
| cultural ecology | an area of inquiry concened with culture as a system of adaptation to environment |
| population density | a mearurement of the number of people per given unit of land |
| arithmetic population density | the population of a country or region expressed as an average per unit area |
| physiological population density | the number of people per unit of area of arable land |
| population distribution | description of locations on teh earth's surface where populations live |
| dot map | maps where one dot represents a certain number of a phenomenon such as population |
| megalopolis | large cluster of supercities |
| census | a periodic and official count of coutries population |
| doubling time | the time it takes for a population to double in size |
| population explosion | the rapid growth of teh world's human population during the past century |
| natural increase | increase only with births and deaths |
| crude birth rate | the number of live births yearly per thousand people in a population |
| crude death rate | teh number of deaths |
| demographic transition | multistage model based on western Europe's experience of change in population growth exhibited by the countries undergoing industrialization |
| stationary population level | the level at which a national population ceases to grow |
| population composition | structure of a population in terms of age, sex and other properties, education |
| population pyramids | visual representation of the age and sex composition of a population graph |
| infant mortality rate (IMR) | a figure that describes the number of babies that die within the first year of their lives in the population |
| child mortality rate | the number of children that die within their first to fifth years in a population |
| life expectancy | how long an average person lives |
| AIDS (aquired immune deficiency syndrome) | Immune system disease caused by the human immunodifficiency virus (HIV) |
| chronic (degenerative) diseases | generally long-lasting afflications now more common because of higher life expectations |
| expansive population policies | government policies that encourage large families and raise the rate of population growth |
| eugenic population policies | government policies designed to favor one racial sector over others |
| restrictive population policies | government policies designed to reduce the rate of natural increase |
| remittance | money migrants send back to family and friends in their home countires |
| cyclic movements | shorter periods away from home (commuting). |
| activity space | a daily routine where someone goes through a regular sequence of short moves within a local area |
| nomadism | movement among a definite set of places. Ex of cyclic movement. |
| periodic movements | tempory, recurrent relocation. Example is colodge, military |
| migrant labor | people who cross national borders for jobs. Example: periodic movement |
| transhumance | a seasonal periodic movement of pastorarists and their livestock between highland and lowland |
| military service | up to 10 million people moved to new locations where they will spend tours of duty lasting up to several years |
| migration | a change in residence intended to be permanent |
| international migration | human movement involving movement across international boundaries |
| internal migration | human movement within a nation-state, such as going westward and southward movements in the US |
| forced migration | human migration flows in which the movers have not choice but to relocate |
| voluntary migration | movement in which people relocate in response to perceived opportunity; not forced. |
| laws of migration | developed by British demographer Ernst Ravenstein, 5 laws that predict the flow of migrants |
| gravity model | a predication of the interaction of places, population size, distance between them |
| push factors | negative conditions and perceptions that induce people to leave their adobe and migrate to a new location |
| pull factors | positive conditions and perceptions that effectively attact people to new locations from other areas |
| distance decay | the effects of distance on interactions, generally greater the distance teh less interaction |
| step migration | migration to a distant destination that occurs in stages, for example, from farm to nearby village and later to a town and city |
| intevening opportunity | the presence of a nearer opportunity that greatly diminishes the attractiveness of sites further away |
| kinship links | types of push or pull factors that influence a migrant's decision to go where family or friends have already found success |
| chain migration | pattern of migration that develops when migrants move along and through kinship links |
| immigration wave | phenomenon whereby differnt patterns of migraation build upon one another and creat a wave |
| explorers | a person examining a region that is unknown to them |
| colonization | colinizer takes over another place, putting its own government in it |
| island of development | place built up by a government or corporation to attract foreign investments and which has high paying jobs |
| guest workers | legal immigrant who has work visa, usually short term |
| refugees | people who have fled their country because of political persecution and seek asylum in another country |
| international refugees | refugees who have crossed 1 or more international boundaries during their dislocation |
| internal refugee | people who have been displaced within their own countires and do not cross international borders as they flee |
| asylum | shelter and protection in one state for refugees from another country |
| immigration laws | laws and regulations of a state designed specifically to control immigration into the state |
| quotas | established limits by governments on the number of immigrants who can enter a country each year |
| selective immigration | process to control immigration in which individuals with certain backgrounds are barred from immigrating |
Combine with other sets
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