AP Human Geography Exam
Vocabulary Items
The following vocabulary items can be found in your
review book and class handouts. These
identifications and concepts do not necessarily
constitute all that will be covered on the exam.
* Additions and changes are in blue.
Unit 1: Nature and Perspectives
Space, place & scale (small vs. large)
Anthropogenic, idiographic, nomothetic
Maps – dot, choropleth, relief (topographic),
cartogram
Globe – latitude (parallel), equator, Tropics of
Cancer & Capricorn, Arctic & Antarctic Circle,
longitude, Prime Meridian, International Date Line
Zones – tropical (low latitudes), temperate (mid
latitudes), polar (high latitudes)
Projections – azimuthal, Mercator, Peter’s,
Robinson’s
Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
Global Positioning System (GPS), remote sensing
Qualitative & quantitative data
Holocene epoch (how it transformed the Earth)
Interglaciation
First Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic Revolution)
Plant domestication, animal domestication
Social stratification (rise of city states)
Pattison's Four Traditions - locational, cultureenvironment, area-analysis, earth-science
Five Themes - location, human/environmental
interaction, region, place, movement
Absolute/relative location
Absolute/relative distance
Site (location, place) & situation (relative location)
Region - formal, functional, perceptual (vernacular)
Mental map; environmental perception
US Belts – Rust, Sun, Cotton, Bible
Components of culture - trait, complex, system,
region, realm
Culture hearths - Fertile Crescent, Indus Valley,
Chang & Yellow River Valley (China), Nile River
Valley and Delta, Meso-America
Independent invention
Cultural landscape (Carl Sauer)
Sequent occupance
Cultural diffusion
Expansion diffusion - contagious, hierarchical,
stimulus
Relocation diffusion - migrant
Acculturation, transculturation, assimilation
Environmental determinism, possibilism
Cultural ecology
Sustainability
Least developed countries (LDCs)
Most developed countries (MDCs)
Unit 2: Population
Population density - arithmetic, physiologic (arable)
Distribution
Major population concentrations - East Asia, South
Asia, Europe, North America, Nile Valley,...
Population growth - world regions, linear,
exponential
Doubling time (70 / rate of increase)
Population explosion, mushrooming population
Population structure (composition) - age-sex
(population) pyramids
Demography
Natural increase
Crude birth/death rate
Total fertility rate
Infant mortality rate (up to 1st year)
Child mortality rate (1 – 5 yrs.)
Maternal mortality rate
Demographic Transition Model - High Stationary,
Early Expanding, Late Expanding, Low Stationary
J-curve (rapid growth)
S-curve (slowed growth until carrying capacity
reached – then no growth)
Stationary Population Level (SPL) (aka Zero
Population Level)
Population theorists - Malthus, Boserup, Marx (as
well as the Cornucopian theory)
Immigration/emigration
Ernst Ravenstein - "laws" of migration (single most
migratory, urban less migratory, most move short
distance, …), gravity model
Push/pull factors - catalysts of migration
Distance decay
Step migration
Chain migration
Intervening opportunities
Voluntary/forced (involuntary) migration
Counter migration
Three types of movement - cyclic (activity (action)
space, commuting, seasonal, nomadism), periodic
(e.g. military service, migrant workers,
transhumance, college dorms), migratory
International/intranational refugees
Temporary/permanent refugees
United Nations (and subsidiaries – Security Council,
World Health Organization (WHO), …)
Population policies - expansive, eugenic, restrictive
(case studies-India, China, Japan), One-child policy
Census tract
Geographic Center (centroid) – US = Missouri
(today)
Baby Boom (US) – 1946-64
Baby Bust (US) – 1960s – 70s
Generation X (US) – 1965 - 80
Unit 3: Cultural Geography
Preliterate societies
Standard language
Dialect
Isoloss
Language - families (e.g., Indo-European, SinoTibetan), subfamilies, groups (Romance, Germanic)
Sound shift & deep reconstruction
Proto-Indo-European
Language divergence, convergence, replacement,
extinction
Conquest/agriculture theory
Nostratic
Language diffusion (and hearths)
Modern linguistic mosaic - literacy, technology,
political organization
Hispanicization (largest US minority today)
Esperanto (failed, Indo-European)
Lingua franca
Pidgin
Creole (and creolization)
Monolingual/multilingual states
Official language
Toponymy (place names)
Language case studies (Quebec, Belgium, Nigeria,...)
Universalizing (global) religions - Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism
Ethnic (local) religions - Judaism, Hinduism,
Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism (& Feng Shui),...
Religious origins and routes of diffusion
Syncretic religion
Secularism
Monotheistic/polytheistic religions
Animism
Shamanism
Hinduism - karma, Brahman, reincarnation, caste
system, untouchables, polytheistic, temples/shrines
Buddhism -Prince Siddhartha, Buddha, Bodhi tree,
Dukkha, Nirvana, pagodas/shrines
Christianity - Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant
(its rise also correlates with the rise in secularism),
Jesus Christ, Bible, cemeteries, largest bureaucracy,
cathedrals/churches, Evangelical
Islam - Sunni, Shiah (Shiite), Muhammad, Allah,
Qu'ran, Imam, sharia laws, Five Pillars, mosques,
minarets, fastest growing & youngest world religion
Ayatollah (Iran), theocracy
Pilgrimage (e.g., hajj)
Denominations
Religious regions in U.S.
Interfaith boundary case studies - Nigeria, Sudan,
Kashmir, Armenia/Azerbaijan (and enclave/exclave),
Yugoslavia (and ethnic cleansing)
Intrafaith boundary case studies - Northern Ireland,
Switzerland
Fundamentalist, extremist, Jihadist
Folk (local) vs. Popular culture
Mass/elite culture
Globalization
Colonization, commodification, distance decay,
homogenation, global-local continuum
Race vs. ethnicity
Skin color - melanin
Ethnic island (enclave/neighborhood), ghetto
Acculturation, transculturation, assimilation
Cultural revival, cultural linkage
Ethnic conflict
Forced vs. affinity segregation, ethnic claims to
territory, ethnic cleansing (e.g., Yugoslavia, Sudan)
Gender gap - effects of modernizaztion
Longevity gap - habits, stress (women outlive men in
all states except few in South Asia, South Africa &
West Africa – lack of rights, AIDS)
Quality of life
Infanticide (greater for boys in India, China)
Dowry deaths (India)
Unit 4: Political Geography
Nation, State & Nation-state
European Model (sovereignty &
nationalism, colonialism)
Territorial Morphology - compact, elongated,
fragmented, perforated, prorupt (protruded)
Microstates (Vatican City, Andorra, …)
Exclave & Enclave (Armenia & Azerbaijan)
Boundaries:
Evolution: definition, delimitation, demarcation
Types: geometric, physical (natural)-political,
cultural political
Genesis: antecedent, subsequent, superimposed,
relict
Disputes: definitional, locational, operational,
allocational
World-Systems Analysis (Wallerstein's
core-periphery model), connect to imperialism
Geopolitics (Ratzel's organic theory), lebensraum
Heartland Theory (Mackinder)
Rimland Theory (Spykman)
Core Areas (and multicore states - Nigeria)
Capital City (and forward capitals)
Primate City (e.g., Paris, Lagos, Dhaka, …)
Unitary vs. federal states
Gerrymandering, redistricting
Electoral College (US)
Centripetal vs. centrifugal forces
Supranationalism (UN, NATO, OPEC, …)
League of Nations & United Nations
Law of the sea - Truman Proclamation, territorial
sea, EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), median-line
principle
Multinational unions (Benelux, EU, NAFTA,…)
New World Order (post-Cold War)
Devolution
Balkanization (e.g., Yugoslavia, USSR,…)
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
Near Abroad (former Soviet sphere)
Ethnonationalism
Gateway states, Frontier
Shatterbelt (e.g., West Bank, Kashmir, Chechnya, …)
East/West Divide (communism/capitalism)
North/South Divide (Brandt Line, core/periphery)
Junta (military rule by committee)
Xenophobia
Globalization - notions of democracy,
commercialism, religious extremism
Unit 5: Economic Geography
Unit 6: Agricultural & Rural Geography
Location theory
Economic activities – primary, secondary, tertiary,
quaternary, quinary
Cottage industry (pre-industrial)
Industrial revolution
Ullman's conceptual frame
Complementarily, intervening opportunity,
transferability
Hotelling's beach (locational interdependence)
Weber's Least cost theory (weight (bulk)-losing &
weight (bulk)-gaining cases), substitution principle
Lösch's model (zone of profitability)
Factors of industrial location (e.g. labor)
Primary industrial regions
Eastern North America, Western & Central
Europe, Russia & Ukraine, Eastern Asia
Secondary industrial regions
Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, India,
Australia,...
First-round industrialization (up to WWI)
Comparative advantage, break-of-bulk,
European dominance
Mid-twentieth century industrialization
Oil & natural gas, rise of U.S., NAMB (North
Am. manufacturing belt), Europe, former
U.S.S.R., Eastern Asia
Late twentieth century industrialization & beyond
"Four Asian Tigers" (South Korea, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, Singapore), Japan's competition
SEZs (Special Economic Zones):
Export processing zones (e.g. Shanghai, China),
India, maquiladoras), gateway cities
High technology corridors (technopoles) (e.g.,
Silicon Valley, Boston, …)
Industrial development – GDP, GNP, alternatives to
GNP (GNI PPP, Human Development Index (HDI),…)
World Systems Analysis (core, semi-periphery,
periphery)
Liberal Models - Rostow's Modernization Model
Structuralist Models - Dependency Theory
Neo-colonialism
Tourism, ecotourism
New international division of labor, offshoring,
outsourcing
Deindustrialization
Supranationalism - GATT, WTO, NAFTA, OECD
Foreign direct investment
Ancillary activities
Economic backwaters (backwash effect)
Break-of-bulk location
Brick-and-mortar business
Footloose industry
Vertical development (production path)
Horizontal development (conglomerate company,
amalgamation)
Multinational Corporation (MNC; aka Transnational
corporation (TNC))
World Cities (Friedman)
Time-space compression & time-space convergence
Glocalization (“thinking globally, acting locally)
Economic Activities
Primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary,
quinary
Rise of Agriculture
Hunting & gathering, metallurgy, plant &
animal domestication (First Agricultural
Revolution), animal husbandry
Subsistence farming
Shifting cultivation, slash-and-burn agriculture
Second Agricultural Revolution
Von Thünen Model (The Isolated State)
Dispersed vs. nucleated settlements
Functional differentiation
Rural Dwellings (unchanged-traditional,
modified-traditional, modernized-traditional,
modern)
Building materials (wood, brick, stone, wattle,
grass & brush)
Folk-housing (e.g. New England, Mid Atlantic)
Maladaptive diffusion
Village forms (linear, cluster, round, walled,
grid pattern)
Patterns of Rural Settlement
Primogeniture, cadastral system, rectangular
survey system (township-and-range)
Labor-intensive agriculture (LDCs)
Commercial agriculture, extensive agriculture
(capital-intensive agriculture)
Planned agriculture (communal, communist)
Plantation agriculture
Location of world crops
Rice, corn, dairy, wheat, livestock,
Mediterranean, luxury crops, illegal drugs
Third Agricultural Revolution (e.g. India)
Green Revolution (mechanization, biotechnology,
agribusiness)
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
Feedlots (factory farms)
Commodity chains (e.g. agribusiness)
Nutrition & Diet
Caloric intake, dietary balance, hidden
hunger
Reducing global hunger
Life expectancy (infant & child mortality rate)
Unit 7: Urban Geography
Early urbanization
Egalitarian vs. stratified societies, formative
era, urban elite, theocratic centers,
Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome
Medieval Optimum (warmer climate) vs. Little
Ice Age (14th - 19th c.)
Societal Classification – Sjoberg (folk-preliterate,
feudal, preindustrial, urban-industrial)
Medieval city
Primate city (e.g., Paris, Mexico City, …)
Urban banana (crescent-shaped zone between
Europe, Islamic Empires, and Asia)
Mercantile-manufacturing-modern cities
Postmodernism
Urban hierarchy
Hamlet, village, town, city, metropolis,
megalopolis (e.g. Bosnywash)
Hinterland
Megacity (e.g., Paris, Mexico City, Lagos, Dhaka)
Megalopolis (e.g., Bosnywash, Greater Tokyo area)
Urban components
CBD (central business district), central city,
inner city, suburb
Central place theory (Christaller)
Central goods & services, range of sale,
threshold, complementary region, hexagons
Urban models
Borchert's four-stage theory of American
urbanization (epochs: Sail-Wagon, Iron
Horse, Steel-Rail, Auto-Air-Amenity, "High
Technology"), Concentric zone (Burgess),
sector (Hoyt), multiple nuclei (Harris &
Ullman), urban realms
Rank-size rule
Economic base (basic vs. nonbasic sectors,
a.k.a. employment structure)
Multiplier effect (1:2 for most large cities)
Functional specialization
Modern city models (foreign)
Latin-American, Southeast Asian,
Sub-Saharan African
Squatter settlement
Sociocultural influences – redlining, blockbusting,
racial steering, segregation
Agglomeration (nucleation) & deglomeration
Zoning laws
Asylum seeker
Informal economy - remittances, "under-the-table",
black market, illegal drug trade
Urban America
Inner city, deglomeration, gentrification,
commercialization, suburbanization
Exurb – commuter town (past suburbs)
Urban sprawl (in US – 50s & 60s suburbs, 70s & 80s
malling, 90s- edge cities)
Urban revitalization (Beaux arts, city beautiful
movement)
Canadian city (cleaner, more compact than US)
European city (& greenbelts)
World city (e.g. NYC, London, Tokyo,...)
Eastern European city (& microdistricsts)
New Urbanism (walking distance)
Unit 8: Environmental Geography
Little Ice Age – in Europe & Asia; led to 2nd
Agricultural Rev., good example of environmental
determinism
Industrial Optimum (warmer climate)
Carrying capacity
Water – renewable resource, hydrologic cycle, most
lost through runoff & evaporation, aquifers, most
water used in farming, disasters (i.e., Aral Sea)
Atmosphere – renewable, global warming,
greenhouse gases (e.g., CO2, methane, nitrous
oxides,…), acid rain - burning of fossil fuels (coal,
oil, natural gas); emitted by cars, industries,…;
caustic enough to do damage over time; (e.g.
acidification of lakes, stunting of forests, loss of
crops & fish,…), CFCs (from refrigerants, some
aerosol cans & fire extinguishers) – deplete ozone
layer (which protects us from ultraviolet rays),
smog (ozone (O3) in troposphere (mostly from
factories or car emissions) = smog)
Land – soil is renewable, desertification,
deforestation (forest help oxygen cycle – convert
CO2 to oxygen), soil erosion (population pressure),
solid waste (U.S. = #1, core exports some waste to
periphery), landfills (core – sanitary w/ lining;
periphery – seepage can pollute groundwater)
Salinization
Hazardous Materials (“HazMats”) – toxic waste,
radioactive waste (low & high level)
Biodiversity – movement affects species (i.e.,
Columbian Exchange), extinctions – Dodo bird,
passenger pigeon,…
Trends in Consumption – greater demand for meat
(can lead cutting of rainforests for grazing land),
more technology = more environmental stress,
pollution,…,
Environmental Policies – NGOs (i.e., GEF –
biodiversity, ozone, climate, international waters),
UN Environment Programme (1993 – biodiversity,
Montreal Protocol (1987 – CFCs), Kyoto Protocol
(1997 – greenhouse gases), U.S. didn’t adopt Kyoto
(would restrict U.S. growth, but not “developing
countries” such as India or China)
Diseases
Infectious, chronic (degenerative), genetic
(inherited), epidemic, pandemic, agent,
reservoir, vector, vehicle, vectored (e.g.
malaria, yellow fever) vs. non-vectored (e.g.
cholera, influenza)