AP Human Geography Barron's Book AP Exam Vocabulary
Chapter 1: Geography, It's Nature and Perspectives
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Absolute Distance: The exact measurement in standard units.
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Absolute Location: The exact location of a place on the earth
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specific observations or occurrences, such as crimes, car
accidents,or births.
described by global coordinates
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Accessibility: The degree of ease with which it is possible to
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Aggregation: Gathering of individuals into a body or group;
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Anthropogenic: Human-induced changes on the natural
environment
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Breaking Point: The outer edge of a city's sphere of influence.
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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
betwee and the physical environment. Sauer argued that virtually
no land escaped alteration by human activities.
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Cartography: The art and science of map making.
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Choropleth Map: A map that uses colors or tonal shadings to
represent categories of data for given geographic areas.
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Complementarity: Is the degree to which one place can supply
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Friction Of Distance: In which distance hinders interaction
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Fuller's Projection: Maintains the accurate size and shape of
between places.
landmasses but completely rearranges direction. The cardinal
directions- north,south,east, and west-no longer have any
meaning.
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Geoid: A bumpy oblate spheroid.
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George Perkins Marsh: Inventor, diplomat, politician, and
scholar, his classic work, Man and Nature, or Physical
Geography as Modified by Human Action, provided the first
description of the extent to which natural systems had been
impacted by human actions.
Contagious Diffusion: Something is transmitted over a
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Cultural Landscapes: The products of complex interactions
between humans and their environments.
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Distance Decay Effect: The decrease in interaction between
two phenomena, places, or people as the distance between them
increases.
Hierarchical Diffusion: Involves the transmission of a
phenomena from one place to another because the level of
interaction between places overcome the actual distance between
them.
Cultural Ecology: The formal study of human-environment
relations.
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Global Positioning System (GPS): Is an integrate networks
of satellites that orbit Earth, broadcasting location information
to handheld receivers on Earth's surface.
Coordinate System: A standard grid, composed of lines of
latitude and longitude, used to determine the absolute location of
any object, place, or feature on the earth's surface.
Geographic Scale: A more general concept that refers to a
conceptual hierarchy of spaces, from small to large, that reflects
actual levels of organization in the real world.
Connectivity: The degree of economic, social, cultural, or
distance because people who carry it are close to each other.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Are a family of
software programs that allows geographers to map, analyze, and
model spatial data.
political connection between two places
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Functional Region: Regions that have special identities
because of the social and economic relationships that tie them
together.
something that another place demands.
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Formal Region: Regions that have specific characteristics that
are relatively uniform from one place to another within the
designated region.
Cognitive Map: A map that is an individual's internal,
geographic understanding of a place. Are formed when people
perceive information about their surroundings and then process
that information into a metal image that reflects both the
physical environment and that individual's social, cultural, and
psychological framework.
Fertile Crescent: Located in the Middle East in the vicinity of
modern-day Iraq, was one of the first areas of sedentary
agriculture and urban society.
Cartograms: A map that transform space such that the political
unit-a state or a country, for example-with the greatest value for
some type of data is represented by the largest relative area.
Expansion Diffusion: The thing or process being spread
remains in the area of origin as well as spreads to surrounding
areas.
Azimuthal Projection: Are planar, meaning they are formed
when a flat piece of paper is placed on top of the globe and a light
source projects the surrounding areas on to a map. Either the
North Pole or the South pole is orientated at the center of the
map, giving the viewer an impression of looking up or down a
Earth.
Eratosthenes: Served as the head librarian at Alexandria
during third century B.C.E., and was one of the earliest
cartographers.
assemblage
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Environmental Geography: The formal study of humanenvironment relations.
reach a certian location from other locations.
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Dot Map: A map that uses dots to show the precise locations of
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Human Geography: Can be broadly defined as the study of
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Idiographic: Refers to facts ore features that are unique to a
human activities on Earth's surface.
particular place or region, such as it's history or ethnic
composition.
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International Date Line: An arc that for the most part follows
180° longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid
dividing land areas. When you cross the International Date Line
heading east (toward America), the clock moves back 24 hours,
or one entire day. When you go west (toward Asia), the calendar
moves ahead one day.
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Isoline: Lines that represent quantities of equal value on a map.
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Large Scale: Have large scale ratios.
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Latitude: Distance north or south of the Equator, measured in
degrees.
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Quantitative Approaches: Use rigorous mathematical
techniques and are particularly important in economic, political,
and population geography where hard, numerical data abounds.
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Quantitative Revolution: A period in human geography
associated with the widespread adoption of mathematical models
and statistical techniques. Stressed the use of empirical
measurements, the testing of hypotheses, the development of
mathematical modes, and the use of computers to explain
geographic patterns.
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Reference Map: A map that works well for locating and
navigating between places.
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Region: Is a generally defined as an area larger than a single
city that contains unifying social or physical characteristics.
Location Chart: Conveys a large amount of information by
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Regional Geography: The study of regions.
associating charts with specific mapped locations.
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Relative Distance: A measure of distance that includes the
Longitude: Distance east or west on the earth's surface,
costs of overcoming the friction of absolute distance separating
two places. Often relative distance describes the amount of
social, cultural, or economic, connectivity between two places.
measured in degrees from a certain meridian (line from the North
to the South Pole).
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Qualitative Approaches: Are often associated with cultural or
regional geography because they tend to be more unique to and
descriptive of particular places and processes.
Law of Retail Gravitation: A law that states that people will
be drawn to large cities to conduct their business since large
cities have a wide influence on the area that surround them.
Proportional Symbols Map: A thematic map in which the
size of a chosen symbol-such as a circle or triangle-indicates the
relative magnitude of some statistical value for a given
geographic region.
Intervening Opportunities: The idea that one place has a
demand for some good or service and two places have a supply of
equal price and quality, then the closer of the two suppliers to the
buyer will represent an intervening opportunity, thereby blocking
the third from being able to share its supply of goods or services.
Intervening opportunities are frequently utilized because
transportation costs usually decrease with proximity.
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Map Scale: Refers to the ratio between the distance on a map
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and the actual distance on Earth's surface.
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Mercator Projection: Preserves accurate compass direction
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Meridians: Lines of longitude
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Natural Landscapes: Landscapes unaltered by human
Relative Location: The regional position or situation of a place
relative to the position of other places
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and distorts the area of landmasses relative to each other
Relocation Diffusion: Occurs when people migrate from one
place to another, bringing with them cultural traditions from
their previous homelands.
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Remote Sensing: Is the process of capturing images of Earth's
Resolution: Refers to map's smallest discernable unit.
surface from airborne platforms such as satellites or airplanes.
activities.
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Nomothetic: Refers to concepts that are universally applicable.
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Parallels: Lines of latitude.
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Robinson Projection: Does not maintain accurate area,shape,
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Perceptual Region: Exist in the minds of people.
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Sense Of Place: People's attachment to the region that they
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Simplification: Elimination of unimportant detail on maps and
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Peters Projection: Is an equal-area projection purposefully
centered on Africa in an attempt to treat all regions of Earth
equally ( according to Dr. Peters).
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perceive as their home.
retention and possibly exaggeration and distortion of important
information, depending on the purpose of the map
Physical Geography: Is concerned with the spatial
characteristics of earth's physical and biological systems .The
study of physical features of the earth's surface
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distance, or direction, but it minimizes errors in each.
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Situation: Describes a place's relationship to other places
environmental, social, or economic quality of life in various
places.
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Small Scale: When the ratio between map units and ground
Prime Meridian: Meridian at zero degree longitude from
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Spatial Diffusion: Describes the ways in which phenomena,
around it.
Preference Map: A map that shows people's ideas about the
units is small.
such as technological innovations, cultural trends, or even
outbreaks of disease, travel over distance.
which east and west are reckoned (usually the Greenwich
longitude in England)
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Projections: A number of mathematical methods that
cartographers use to produce a flat map of the round earth
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Spatial Perspective: Is an intellectual framework that allows
geographers to look at Earth in terms of the relationship among
various places.
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Sustainability: Implies an approach to the environment that emphasizes restraint in the use of natural resources for future generations.
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Thematic Layers: Individual maps of specific features that are overlaid on one another in a Geographical Information System to
understand and analyze a spatial relationship. Each thematic layer consists of an individual map that contains specific features, such as
roads, stream networks, or elevation contours.
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Thematic Map: A map that displays one or more variables across a specific space.
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Time-Space Convergence: The idea that absolute distance between some places is actually shrinking as technolgy enables more rapid
communication and increased interaction between those places.
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Topographic Map: A map that shows surface features of an area such as mountains, valleys, plains, and plateaus by using contour
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Topological Space: The amount of connectivity between places, regardless of the absolute distance separating them.
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Transferability: Refers to the costs involved in moving goods from one place to another.
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Visualizations: A class of maps that use sophisticated software to create dynamic computer maps, some of which are three dimensional or
(isoline) lines to show changes in elevation
interactive.
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W. D. Pattison: A geographer from the University of Chicago, claimed in 1964 that geography drew from four distinct traditions: the
Earth-science tradition, the culture-environment, the locational tradition, and the area analysis tradition.