AP Human Geography
Essential Questions: A Study Tool for the AP Exam
Each essential question is broken down into units of study, but not the chapters w/in those
units. You must understand the full magnitude of the unit, as well as the chapters, in
order to answer each essential question. They are not meant to fit only with one chapter,
per se.
Population Geography
1. List and Explain the problems high population growth rates are causing in the
world today.
2. After studying the demographic cycle, do you understand why the four stages
might not apply to today’s developing countries? How did European colonization
affect these countries?
3. List the three characteristics that distinguish refugees from migrants. Can you
describe situations that might create international refugees? Describe situations
that have created refugee crises in Africa.
4. List and define the factors that make people migrate. How do push/pull factors
come into play? Read Ravenstein’s ‘Laws’ of migration carefully and apply them
to migrations you are familiar with.
Diffusion: Language and Religion
1. What are the major components that make up the definition of language as spoken
by humans? What is a standard language? How does the text explain a dialect and
isoglass?
2. What does the study of toponymy reveal about past and current cultures of a
place? What can we learn from two-part place names?
3. List the different ways religion manifests itself. Although they cannot be defined
exactly, list the different rituals that are commonly found in various religions.
Also list the positive and negative effects religion has had on people and cultures.
Political Geography
1. Define state and nation. List the main historic events that led to development of
the modern European state and nation-state. Why have most other states followed
the same model?
2. What role did colonization play in the establishment of today’s states?
3. Discuss the history leading to the formation of the EU. What problems does this
organization face? In what other parts of the world are international associations
being formed to reduce economic barriers?
4. Explain devolution of the former Soviet Union. What devolutionary factors are
now being faced in the newly independent states?
Economic Geography
1. Why is it accurate to describe the world today as being in the modern age of
industrial intensification? Did the Industrial Revolution affect all regions in
Europe? Why or why not?
2. List and explain the different models of development. Give some of the strong
and weak points of each. Do you think any one covers all the problems in
deciding the development stage of a country? List some factors that helped or
hindered a country in its economic development.
3. How do world cities fit into the picture of today’s global economy? Where are
they located?
4. List and define the different kinds of specialized economic zones. Where are they
located? Why have they been created?
Agricultural Geography
1. Discuss ways colonial powers permanently changed farming practices when they
colonized the different areas of the world.
2. Discuss the reasons for different settlement patterns. List in chronological order
changes that probably occurred in housing structure since humans built their first
shelters, and the probable reasons for these changes. Why is it so difficult to trace
diffused building patterns?
3. What are cartels and what is their purpose? Are they usually successful? Can they
used for both food and non-food commodities?
4. What are genetically modified foods? Where are they grown? Why is there
controversy about these foods?
Urban Geography
1. What role did function and location play in the development of early cities? What
basic factors were needed?
2. What are the characteristics of a primate city?
3. List the positive and negative factors found in and around a city’s site. Do the
same for a city’s relative location (situation). Give two example cities and explain
how these factors have affected them. Have their relative locations (situations)
changed over time?
4. When we talk about the primary function of an urban place today, why is
functional specialization no longer so important?
5. List the factors that make cities in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa
different from American and European cities. What is the prime reason these
cities developed differently?
Essential Questions:
1. List the problems in America’s central (CBD) cities. Why do these problems
exist? What efforts are being made to reverse this trend? How have the original
suburbs evolved?
2. Using the material in your text, define globalization in your own words. List some
examples of both cultural and economic diffusion that have affected this process.
How is the term ethnic used? How does ethnicity fit with culture? Briefly describe
the situation in former Yugoslavia with regards to race, ethnicity, culture and
religion. How does acculturation affect ethnic identity?
Have women achieved total equality in the wealthier developed regions of the world?
How do women fare in the political scene? How is this beginning to change?
Notable Geographers &
Unit
Identify Theory or
Model & Briefly
explain
*John Borchert
Borchert’s Epochs in
Urban Development
Urban
Ester Boserup
Rural Land Use
Lester Brown
*Ernest Burgess
Urban land use
Judith Carney
Manuel Castells/Peter Hall
Burgess’ Concentric
Zone Model
Why is it important? Sketch it out.
*Walter Christaller
Christallers’ Central
Place Theory
Urban Land Use
Harm deBlij
African City Model
Urban Land Use
Aharon Dogopolsky
Clifford Geetz
Culture/Religion
Griffin/Ford
Jacob Grimm
Culture
Peter Hall/Manuel Castells
Latin American City
Model
Chauncey Harris/EL
Ullman
Harris/Ullman Multiple
Nuclei Model
Urban Land Use
Richard Hartshorne
David Harvey
*Homer Hoyt
Hoyt Urban Sector
Model
Urban Land Use
E. Adamson Hoebel
Harold Hotelling
Industrial/Development
Locational
Interdendence of
Business Location
Ellsworth Huntington
William Jones
August Losch
*Halford Mackinder
Political
Mackinder’s Heartland
Theory
*Thomas Malthus
Malthus Model
Population/Rural Land
Use
T,G, McGee
Urban Land Use
Southeast Asian City
Model
Richard O’Brien
*Friedrich Ratzel
Ratzel’s Organic
Theory
Political
*E. G. Ravenstein
Population
Ravensteins’s Laws of
Migration
*WW Rostow
Rostow’s Stages of
Development
Economic/Industrial
Carl Sauer
Cultural Landscape/
Culture/Agriculture
Crop Hearths
Ruth Leger Sivard
Gideon Sjoberg
John Snow
Mapping Cholera
Outbreak in London
*Nicholas Spykman
Spykman’s Rimland
Theory
Political
*Warren Thompson
Population
Demographic Transition
Model
*EL Ullman/Chauncey
Harris
Harris/Ullman Multiple
Nuclei Model
Urban Land Use
*James Vance
Urban Realm Model
Urban Land Use
*Johann Heinrich
vonThunen
Agriculture/Rural Land
Use
Von Thunen Model of
Agricultural Land use
*Immanuel Wallerstein
Wallerstein’s Industrial
Location
Economic/Development
Alfred Weber
Alfred Wegener
Wegener’s Plate
Tectonics Theory
Geography: Its Nature and Perspectives—Basic Vocabulary and Concepts
Note: The following concepts transcend all units in AP Human Geography; they are
central to all geographic thinking and analysis and could even be considered central to
any definition of geography.
Basic Concepts
Changing attributes of place (built landscape, sequent occupance)
Cultural attributes (cultural landscape)
Density (arithmetic, physiological)
Diffusion (hearth, relocation, expansion, hierarchical, contagious, stimulus)
Direction (absolute, relative)
Dispersion/concentration (dispersed/scattered, clustered/agglomerated)
Distance (absolute, relative)
Distribution Environmental determinism
Location (absolute, relative, site, situation, place name)
Pattern (linear, centralized, random)
Physical attributes (natural landscape)
Environmental Determinism
Possibilism
Region (formal/uniform, functional/nodal, perceptual/vernacular)
Scale (implied degree of generalization)
Spatial (of or pertaining to space on or near Earth’s surface)
Spatial interaction (accessibility, connectivity, network, distance decay, friction of
distance, time-space compression)
Geographic Tools
Distortion
Geographic Information System (GIS) Global Positioning System (GPS)
Grid (North and South Poles, latitude, parallel, equator, longitude, meridian, prime
meridian, international date line)
Map (Maps are the tool most uniquely identified with geography; the ability to use and
interpret maps is an essential geographic skill.)
Map scale (distance on a map relative to distance on Earth)
Map types (thematic, statistical, cartogram, dot, chloropleth, isoline) Mental map
Model (a simplified abstraction of reality, structured to clarify causal relationships):
Geographers use models (e.g., Demographic Transition, Epidemiological Transition,
Gravity, Von Thünen, Weber, Stages of Growth [Rostow], ConcentricCircle [Burgess],
Sector [Hoyt], Multiple Nuclei, Central Place [Christaller], and so on) to explain
patterns, make informed decisions, and predict future behaviors.
Projection Remote sensing
Time zones
Population—Basic Vocabulary and Concepts
Population
Age distribution
Carrying capacity
Cohort
Demographic equation
Demographic momentum
Demographic regions
Demographic Transition model
Dependency ratio
Diffusion of fertility control
Disease diffusion
Doubling time
Ecumene
Epidemiological Transition model
Gendered space
Infant mortality rate
J-curve
Malthus, Thomas
Mortality
Neo-Malthusian
Overpopulation
Population densities
Population distributions
Population explosion
Population projection
Population pyramid
Rate of natural increase
S-curve
Sex ratio
Standard of living
Sustainability
Underpopulation
Zero population growth
Migration
Chain migration
Cyclic movement
Distance decay
Forced
Gravity model
Internal migration
Intervening opportunity
Migration patterns
• Intercontinental
• Interregional
• Rural-urban
Migratory movement
Periodic movement
Push-pull factors
Refugee
Space-time
Step migration
Transmigration
Voluntary migration
Cultural Patterns and Processes, Part 1—Basic Vocabulary and Concepts
Concepts of Culture
Acculturation
Assimilation
Cultural adaptation
Cultural core/periphery pattern
Cultural ecology
Cultural identity
Cultural landscape
Cultural realm
Culture
Culture region
• Formal—core, periphery
• Functional—node
• Vernacular (perceptual)—regional self-awareness Diffusion types
• Expansion—hierarchical, contagious, stimulus
• Relocation
diffusion
Sequent occupance
Folk and Popular Culture
Adaptive strategies
Anglo-American landscape characteristics and Architectural form
Built environment Folk culture
Folk food
Folk house
Folk songs
Folklore
Material culture Nonmaterial culture
Popular culture
Traditional architecture
Language
Creole
Dialect
Indo-European languages
Isogloss
Language
Language family
Language group
Language subfamily
Lingua franca
Linguistic diversity
Monolingual/multilingual
Official language
Pidgin
Toponymy
Trade language
Cultural Patterns and Processes, Part 2—Basic Vocabulary and Concepts
Religion
Religion
Beliefs/Aspects/Sects/Buildings
Location
Hinduism
Confucianism
Islam
Jainism
Judaism
Shamanism
Zoroastrianism
Taoism
Christianity
Shintoism
Sikhism
Mormonism
cult
pilgrimage
Ethnic religion
Exclave/enclave
Fundamentalism
Geomancy (feng shui)
Hadj
Interfaith boundaries
Landscapes of the dead
Monotheism/polytheism
Muslim pilgrimage
Muslim population
Proselytic religion or Universalizing
Reincarnation
Religion (groups, places)
Religious architectural styles
Religious conflict
Religious culture hearth
Religious toponym
Sacred space
Secularism
Sharia law
Sunni/Shia
Theocracy
Ethnicity
Acculturation
Adaptive strategy
Assimilation
Barrio
Chain migration
Cultural adaptation
Cultural shatterbelt
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic conflict
Ethnic enclave
Ethnic group
Ethnic homeland
Ethnic landscape
Ethnic neighborhood
Ethnicity
Ethnocentrism
Ghetto
Plural society
Race
Segregation
Social distance
Gender
Dowry death
Enfranchisement
Gender
Gender gap
Infanticide
Longevity gap
Maternal mortality rate
Political Organization of Space—Basic Vocabulary and Concepts
Annexation
Antarctica
Apartheid
Balkanization
Border landscape
Boundary, disputes (definitional, locational, operational, allocational) Boundary, origin
(antecedent, subsequent, superimposed, relic)
Boundary, process (definition, delimitation, demarcation)
Boundary, type (natural/physical, ethnographic/cultural, geometric)
Buffer state
Capital
Centrifugal
Centripetal
City-state
Colonialism
Confederation
Core/periphery
Decolonization
Devolution
Domino theory
EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone)
Electoral regions
Enclave/exclave
Ethnic conflict
European Union
Federal
Forward capital
Frontier
Geopolitics
Gerrymander
Global commons
Heartland/rimland
Immigrant states
International organization
Iron Curtain
Israel/Palestine
Landlocked
Law of the Sea
Mackinder, Halford J.
Manifest destiny
Median-line principle
Microstate
Ministate Nation
National iconography
Nation-state
Raison d’être
Reapportionment
Regionalism
Religious conflict
Reunification
Satellite state
Self-determination
Shatterbelt
Sovereignty
State
Stateless ethnic groups
Stateless nation
Suffrage
Supranationalism
Territorial disputes
Territorial morphology (compact, fragmented, elongated, prorupt, perforated)
Territoriality
Theocracy Treaty ports
UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) Unitary
USSR collapse
Women’s enfranchisement
Agricultural and Rural Land Use—Basic Vocabulary and Concepts
Adaptive strategies
Agrarian Agribusiness
Agricultural industrialization
Agricultural landscape
Agricultural location models
Agricultural origins
Animal domestication
Aquaculture
Biorevolution
Biotechnology
Collective farm
Commercial agriculture (intensive, extensive)
Core/periphery
Crop rotation
Cultivation regions
Dairying
Debt-for-nature swap
Diffusion
Double cropping
Economic activity (primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, quinary) Environmental
modification (pesticides, soil erosion, desertification)
Extensive subsistence agriculture (shifting cultivation [slash-and- burn, milpa, swidden],
nomadic herding/pastoralism)
Extractive industry
Farm crisis
Feedlot
First agricultural revolution
Fishing
Food chain
Forestry
Globalized agriculture
Green revolution
Growing season
Hunting and gathering
Intensive subsistence agriculture
Intertillage
Livestock ranching
Market gardening
Mediterranean agriculture
Mineral fuels
Mining
Planned economy
Plant domestication
Plantation agriculture
Renewable/nonrenewable
Rural settlement (dispersed, nucleated, building material, village form)
Sauer, Carl
Second agricultural revolution
Specialization
Staple grains
Suitcase farm
Survey patterns (long lots, metes and bounds, township-and-range)
Sustainable yield
Third agricultural revolution (mechanization, chemical farming, food manufacturing)
“Tragedy of the commons”
Transhumance
Truck farm
Von Thünen, Johann Heinrich
Industrialization and Development—Basic Vocabulary and Concepts Development
Agricultural labor force
Calorie consumption
Core-periphery model
Cultural convergence
Dependency theory
Development
Energy consumption
Foreign direct investment
Gender
Gross domestic product (GDP)
Gross national product (GNP)
Human Development Index
Levels of development
Measures of development
Neocolonialism
Quality of Life Index
Purchasing power parity
Rostow, W. W.
“Stages of Growth” model
Technology gap
Technology transfer
Third World
World Systems Theory
Industrialization
Acid rain
Agglomeration
economies
Air pollution
Aluminum industry (factors of production, location)
Assembly line production/Fordism
Bid rent theory
Break-of- bulk point
Canadian industrial heartland
Carrier efficiency
Comparative advantage
Cumulative causation
Deglomeration
Deindustrialization
Economic sectors
Economies of scale
Ecotourism
Energy resources
Entrepôt
Export processing zone
Fixed costs
Footloose industry
Four Tigers
Greenhouse effect
Growth poles
Heartland/rimland
Industrial location theory
Industrial regions (place, fuel source, characteristics)
Industrial Revolution
Industry (receding, growing)
Infrastructure
International division of labor
Labor-intensive
Least-cost location
Major manufacturing regions
Manufacturing/warehouse location (industrial parks, agglomeration, shared services,
zoning, transportation, taxes, environmental considerations)
Maquiladora
Market orientation
Multiplier effect
NAFTA
Outsourcing
Ozone depletion
Plant location (supplies, “just in time” delivery)
Postindustrial
Refrigeration
Resource crisis
Resource orientation
Special economic zones (China)
Specialized economic zones
Substitution principle
Threshold/range
Time-space compression
Topocide
Trade (complementarity)
Transnational corporation
Ubiquitous
Variable costs
Weber, Alfred
Weight-gaining
Weight-losing
World cities
Cities and Urban Land Use—Basic Vocabulary and Concepts
Agglomeration
Barriadas
Bid-rent theory
Blockbusting
CBD (central business district)
Census tract
Centrality
Centralization
Central-place theory
Christaller, Walter
City
Cityscapes
Colonial city
Commercialization
Commuter zone
Concentric zone model
Counterurbanization
Decentralization
Deindustrialization
Early cities
Economic base (basic/nonbasic)
Edge city
Emerging cities
Employment structure
Entrepôt
Ethnic neighborhood
Favela
Female-headed household
Festival landscape
Gateway city
Gender
Gentrification
Ghetto
Globalization Great cities
High-tech corridors
Hinterland
Indigenous city
In-filling
Informal sector
Infrastructure
Inner city
Invasion and succession
Lateral commuting
Medieval cities
Megacities
Megalopolis/conurbation
Metropolitan area
Multiple nuclei model
Multiplier effect
Neighborhood
Office park
Peak land value intersection
Planned communities
Postindustrial city
Postmodern urban landscape
Primate city
Racial steering
Rank-size rule
Redlining
Restrictive covenants
Sector model Segregation
Settlement form (nucleated, dispersed, elongated)
Shopping mall
Site/situation Slum
Social structure
Specialization
Squatter settlement
Street pattern (grid, dendritic; access, control)
Suburb
Suburbanization
Symbolic landscape
Tenement
Threshold/range
Town
Underclass
Underemployment
Urban growth rate
Urban function
Urban hearth area
Urban heat island
Urban hierarchy
Urban hydrology
Urban morphology
Urbanization
Urbanized population
World city
Zone
Transition Zone