agricultural density
The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture.
arithmetic density
The total number of people divided by the total land area.
concentration
The spread of something over a given area.
contagious diffusion
The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.
cultural ecology
Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relations.
culture
The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group of people's distinct tradition.
density
The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area.
diffusion
The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time.
distribution
The arrangement of something across Earth's surface.
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.
expansion diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process.
hearth
The region from which innovative ideas originate.
hierarchical diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places.
physiological density
The number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture.
polder
Land created by the Dutch by draining water from an area.
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.
relocation diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.
space-time compression
The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation systems.
stimulus diffusion
The spread of an underlying principle, even thought its specific characteristic is rejected.
transnational corporation
A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located.
uneven development
The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy.
cultural landscape
A combination of cultural features such as language and religion, economic features such as agriculture and industry, and physical features such as climate and vegetation.
mental map
An internal representation of a portion of Earth's surface based on what an individual knows about a place, containing personal impressions of what is in a place and where places are located.
regional (or cultural landscape) studies
An approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area.
"region"
The designation can be applied to any area larger that a point and smaller than the whole planet.
formal region
(or uniform or homogenous region) An area in which everyone shares on or more distinctive characteristics.
functional (or nodal) region
An area organized around a node or focal point.
vernacular (or perceptual) region
An area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity.
language
A system of signs, sounds, gestures, and marks that have meanings understood within a cultural group. People communicate the cultural values they care about through language, and the words themselves tell us something about where different cultural groups are located.
religion
An important cultural value because it is the principle system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices through which people worship in a formal, organized way.
ethnicity
Encompasses a group's language, religion, and other cultural values, as well as its physical traits. A group possesses these cultural and physical characteristics as a product of its common traditions and heredity.