Ap Human Geography ~ Chapter 1

Front 1

Sequent Occupance

Back 1

The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape. This is an important concept in geography because it symbolizes how humans interact with their surroundings

Front 2

Cultural Landscape

Back 2

Fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group. This is the essence of how humans interact with nature

Front 3

Arithmetic Density

Back 3

The total number of people divided by the total land area. This is what most people think of as density; how many people per area of land

Front 4

Physiological Density

Back 4

The number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture. This is important because it relates to how much land is being used by how many people

Front 5

Hearth

Back 5

The region from which innovative ideas originate. This relates to the important concept of the spreading of ideas from one area to another (diffusion)

Front 6

Diffusion

Back 6

The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time

Front 7

Relocation Diffusion

Back 7

The spread of an idea through physical movement of people from one place to another. Ex: Spread of AIDS from New York, California, & Florida

Front 8

Expansion Diffusion

Back 8

The spread of a feature from one place to another in a snowballing process. This can happen in 3 ways:

- Hierarchical Diffusion: The spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places (Ex: Hip-Hop/Rap music)

- Contagious Diffusion: The rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population (Ex: Ideas placed on the internet)

- Stimulus Diffusion: The spread of an underlying principle, even though a characteristic itself apparently fails to diffuse (Ex: PC & Apple competition, p40)

Front 9

Absolute Distance

Back 9

Exact measurement of the physical space between two places

Front 10

Relative Distance

Back 10

Approximate measurement of the physical space between two places

Front 11

Distribution

Back 11

The arrangement of something across Earth's surface

Front 12

Environmental Determinism

Back 12

A 19th- and early 20th- 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

Front 13

Absolute Location

Back 13

Position on Earth's surface using the coordinate system of longitude (that runs from North to South Pole) and latitude (that runs parallel to the equator)

Front 14

Relative Location

Back 14

Position of Earth's surface relative to other features (Ex: My house is west of 394)

Front 15

Site

Back 15

The physical character of place; what is found at the location and why it is significant (For more on Site & Situation, see p.16)

Front 16

Situation

Back 16

The location of a place relative to other places (Site and Situation, pg.16)

Front 17

Space Time Compression

Back 17

The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation system

Front 18

Friction of Distance

Back 18

Is based on the notion that distance usually requires some amount of effort, money, and/or energy to its origin. Typically, the farther away one group is from another, the less likely the two groups are to interact. Electronic devices such as the internet and e-mail have aided in eliminating barriers to interaction between people who are far from each other

Front 19

Networks

Back 19

Defined by Manuel Castells as a set of interconnected nodes without a center

Front 20

Connectivity

Back 20

The relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space. Geographers are concerned with the various means by which connections occur

Front 21

Accessibility

Back 21

The degree of ease with which it is possible to reach certain location from other locations. Accessibility varies from place to place and can be measured

Front 22

Space

Back 22

Refers to the physical gap or interval between two objects

Front 23

Spatial Distribution

Back 23

Physical location of geographic phenomena across SPACE

Front 24

Size

Back 24

Is the estimation or determination of extent

Front 25

Scale

Back 25

Representation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction or generalization. In cartography, the ratio of map distance to ground distance, indicated on a map as a bar graph, representative fraction, and/or verbal statement