AP Human Geography
Rubenstein Vocabulary List // Chapter One – Introduction to Geography
1) globalization: greater cultural and economic interaction among people all over the world
2) geography: The study of the earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the earth,
including human life
3) human geography: The study of where and why human activities are located where they are
4) physical geography: The study where and why natural forces occur as they do
5) map: A two-dimension or flat scale model of something
6) place: A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic
7) region: an area of Earth distinguished by a distinctive combination of cultural and physical
features
8) scale: the relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole
9) cartography: the science of mapmaking
10) map projection: the scientific method of transferring locations on Earth's surface to a flat map
11) GIS (geographic information system): a computer system that can capture, store, query,
analyze, and display geographic date
12) remote sensing: the acquisition of data from a satellite orbiting Earth or from another longdistance method
13) GPS (global positioning system): a system that accurately determines the precise position of
something on Earth
14) location: the position that something occupies on Earth
15) toponym: the name given to a place on Earth
16) site: physical character of a place
17) situation: the location of a place relative to other places
18) meridian: an arc drawn between North and South poles
19) parallel: a circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator
20) longitude: numbering system for meridians (axis between North and South poles)
21) prime meridian: 0 degrees longitude - passes through Greenwich, England
22)latitude: numbering system for parallels
23)equator: zero degrees latitude, divides the Northern and Southern Hemispheres
24)Greenwich Mean Time (GMT): master reference time for all points on Earth
AP Human Geography
Rubenstein Vocabulary List // Chapter Two – Population
1) .Agricultural revolution: the development of farming (approx. 10,000 years ago)
2) Arithmetic Population Density: The total number of people divided by the total land area
3) Carrying Capacity: the amount of people an area can support
4) Census: A complete enumeration of a population
5) Child Mortality Rate: A figure that describes the number of children that die between the first
and fifth years of their lives in a given population
6) Chronic Diseases: Generally long - lasting afflictions now more common because of higher life
expectancies
7) Crude Birth Rate (CBR): The number of live births yearly per 1,000 people in a population.
8) Crude Death Rate (CDR): The number of deaths yearly per 1,000 people in a population
9) Demographic equation: NIR = CBR - CDR
10) Demographic Transition: High birth rates and death rates are followed by plunging death
rates, producing a huge net population gain, this is followed by the convergence of birth rates and
death rates at a low overall level gradually stabilizing population growth rates.
11) Demographic Transition model: the steps through which a society’s population growth
(correlates with development) progresses
12) Demography: the scientific study of population characteristics
13) Dependency ratio: the number of people who can't work
14) Doubling Time: the time it takes for an area's population to double
15) Ecumene: the area of land occupied by humans
16) Eugenic Population Policies: Government population policies designed to favor one racial
sector over others
17) Expansive Population Policies: Government policies that encourage large families and raise
the rate of population growth
18) Exponential growth: growth by a percentile instead of a static number (steep growth)
19) Infant Mortality Rate: The total number of deaths in a year among infants under one year old
for every 1000 live births in a society
20) J-curve: The shape of a line graph of population graph when growth is exponential
21) Life Expectancy: A figure indicating how long, on average, a person may be expected to live
22)Malthus, Thomas (Thomas Malthus): British economist of late 1700's. considered the first
to predict a population crisis
23)Medical Revolution: the leap of medical knowledge in stage 2 of the demographic transition
24)Megalopolis: Term used to designate large coalescing supercities that are forming in diverse
parts of the world.
25) Mortality: the rate at which people die
26)Natural Increase: Population growth measured as the excess of live births over deaths; does
not reflect either emigrant or immigrant movements Natural Increase Rate =(NIR)
27) Neo-Malthusians: group who built on Malthus' theory and suggested that people wouldn't just
starve for lack of food, but would have wars about food and other scarce resources
28) Overpopulation: too many people in one place for the resources available
29)Physiological Population Density: The number of people per unit of area of arable land,
which is land suitable for agriculture
30) Population Composition: Structure of population in terms of age, sex and other properties
such as marital status and education
31) Population Density: A measurement of the number of people per given unit of land
32)Population Distribution: Description of locations on Earth's surface where populations live
33)Population Explosion: The rapid growth of the world's human population during the past
century, attended by ever- shorter doubling times and accelerating rates of increase.
34)Population Projection: Estimation of future population growth, by extrapolating current
trends and known growth factors
35) Population Pyramids: A bar graph representing the distribution of population by age and sex
36)Restrictive Population Policies: Government policies designed to reduce the rate of natural
increase
37) Sex ratio: the ratio of men to women
38) Standard of living: The goods a services and their distribution within a population
39) Sustainability: The level of development that can be maintained without depleting resources
40) Total Fertility rate: the average number of children a woman has during child bearing years
(15-49 years)
AP Human Geography
Rubenstein Vocabulary List // Chapter Three – Migration
1) .Activity Space: the space within which daily activity occurs
2) Brain Drain: Large-scale emigration by talented, educated people.
3) Chain Migration: migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the
same nationality previously migrated there
4) circulation: short-term, repetitive, or cyclical movements that recur on a regular basis
5) distance decay function: The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a
phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin
6) emigration: migration from a location
7) immigration: migration to a location
8) forced migration: permanent movement compelled usually by cultural factors
9) voluntary migration: permanent movement undertaken by choice
10) gravity model: A mathematical formula that describes the level of interaction between two
places, based on the size of their populations and their distance from each other
11) guest worker: a person with temporary permission to work in another country
12) .internal migration: permanent movement within the same country
13) international migration: permanent movement from one country to another
14) intervening obstacle: An environmental or cultural feature of the landscape that hinders
migration
15) migration transition: change in the migration pattern in a society that results from
industrialization, population growth, and other social and economic changes that also produce
the demographic transition
16) migration stream: A constant flow of migrants from the same origin to the same destination
17) migration selectivity: Only people exhibiting certain characteristics in a population choosing
to migrate
18) mobility: the quality of moving freely
19) net migration: the difference between the level of immigration and the level of emigration
20) push factors: factors that induce people to leave old residences
21) pull factors: factors that induce people to move to a new location
22).refugee: people who are forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of
persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group, of political
opinion
23).urbanization: an increase in the percentage and in the number of people living in urban
settlements
24).suburbanization: The process of population movement from within towns and cities to the
rural-urban fringe
25) .counterurbanization: Net migration from urban to rural areas in more developed countries
26).interregional migration: movement from one region of a country to another
27) .intraregional: movement within a region
AP Human Geography
Rubenstein Vocabulary List // Chapter 4 Folk Culture, Popular Culture & Cultural Landscapes
1)
Acculturation
2) Artifacts
3) Assimilation
4) Commodification
5) Contagious diffusion
6) Culture
7)
Cultural
determinism
8) Cultural diffusion
9) Cultural ecology
10) Cultural geography
11) Cultural hearths
12) Cultural landscape
13) Culture system
14) Culture trait
15) Custom
16) Distance decay
17) Ethnic neighborhood
18) Ethnocentrism
19) Folk culture
the exchange of cultural features that results when groups of
individuals having different cultures come into continuous contact
An object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or
historical interest
process through which people lose originally differentiating traits, such
as dress, speech particularities or mannerisms, when they come into
contact with another society or culture.
process through which something is given monetary value. Occurs
when a good or idea that previously was not regarded as an object to be
bought and sold is turned into something that has a particular price
and that can be traded in a market economy.
A form of expansion diffusion in which an innovation spreads across
contiguous space after direct contact between the innovator(s) and
potential adapters of an innovation. Contrast hierarchical diffusion.
The sum total of the knowledge, attitudes, and habitual behavior
patterns shared and transmitted by the members of a society.
Emphasizes human culture as ultimately more important than physical
environment in shaping human actions.
the spreading of a cultural trait from one society to another
The field that studies the relationship between the natural
environment and culture
The study of the transformation of the land and the ways that humans
interact with the environment.
The area where an idea or cultural trait originates “birthplaces of
culture”
The visible imprint of human activity and culture on the landscape.
The layers of buildings, forms, and artifacts sequentially imprinted on
the landscape by the activities of various human occupants
Any area with strong cultural ties that binds its people together, a
group of interconnected culture complexes
A single attribute of a culture
Practice routinely followed by a group of people
The effects of distance on interaction, generally the greater the
distance the less interaction
Neighborhood, typically situated in a larger metropolitan city and
constructed by or comprised of a local culture, in which a local culture
can practice its customs
Judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture.
Cultural traits such as dress modes, dwellings, traditions, and
institutions of usually small, traditional communities.
20) Global-local
continuum
21) Glocalization
22) Hierarchical
diffusion
23) Local culture
24) Material Culture
25) Neolocalism
26) Non-material culture
27) Norms
28) Placelessness
29) Popular culture
30) Relocation diffusion
31) Reterritorialization
32) Stimulus diffusion
33) Time-space
compression
34) Transculturation
The notion that what happens at the global scale has a direct effect on
what happens at the local scale, and vice versa.
The process by which people in a local place mediate and alter
regional, national, and global processes
A form of expansion diffusion in which an innovation spreads over
space from large places to progressively smaller ones, skipping the
spaces in between. Contrast contagious diffusion.
Group of people in a particular place who see themselves as a
community, who share experiences, customs, and traits, and who work
to preserve those traits and customs in order to claim uniqueness and
to distinguish themselves from others
The art, housing, clothing, sports, dances, foods, and other similar
items constructed or created by a group of people
The seeking out of the regional culture and reinvigoration of it in
response to the uncertainty of the modern world.
The beliefs, practices, aesthetics, and values of a group of people.
Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its
members.
The loss of uniqueness of place in the cultural landscape so that one
place looks like the next.
traits such as dress, diet, and music that identify and are part of
modern changeable, urban-based, media-influenced western societies
Populations migrating from areas physically carry the innovation or
idea to new areas
With respect to popular culture, when people within a place start to
produce an aspect of popular culture themselves, doing so in the
context of their local culture and making it their own.
A form of expansion diffusion in which a basic idea, though not the
specific trait itself, stimulates imitative behavior within a population.
Refers to the social and psychological effects of living in a world in
which time-space convergence has rapidly reached a high level.
Process in which a two-way flow of culture exists.
AP Human Geography
Rubenstein Vocabulary List // Chapter 5 Race and Ethnicity
1. Barriorzation - Defined by geographer James Curtis as the dramatic increase in Hispanic
population in a given neighborhood; referring to barrio, the Spanish word for neighborhood.
2. Dowry Deaths - In the context of arranged marriages in India, disputes over the price to be
paid by the family of the bride to the father of the groom (the dowry) have, in some extreme
cases, led to the death of the bride.
3. Ethnicity - Affiliation or identity within a group of people bound by common ancestry and
culture.
4. Gendered - In terms of place, whether the place is designed for or claimed by men or
women.
5. Identifying against - Constructing an identity by first defining the "other" and then defining
ourselves as "not the other"
6. Identity - Defined by geography Gillian Rose as "how we make sense of ourselves;" how
people see themselves at different scales.
7. Invasion and Succession - Process by which new immigrants to a city move to and dominate
or take over areas or neighborhoods occupied by older immigrant groups.
8. Place - Theme of geography; uniqueness of a location
9. Queer Theory - Theory defined by geographers Glen Elder, Lawrence Knopp, and
10.Heidi Nast that highlights the contextual nature of opposition to the heteronormative and
focuses on the political engagement of "queers" with the heteronormative.
11.Race - A categorization of humans based on skin color and other physical characteristics.
Racial categories are social and political construction because they are based on ideas that
some biological differences (esp. skin color) are more important than others (e.g. height,
etc), even though the later might have more significance in terms of human activity. With its
roots in 16th century England, the term is closely associated with European colonialism
because of the impact of the development on global understandings of racial differences.
12.Racism - Frequently referred to as a system or attitude toward visible differences in
individuals, racism is an ideology of differences that ascribes (predominately negative)
significance and meaning to culturally, socially, and politically constructed ideas based on
phenotypical features.
13.Residential segregation - Defined by geographers Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton as the
degree to which two or more groups live separately from one another, in different parts of
an urban environment.
14.Sense of Place - State of mind derived through the infusion of a place with meaning and
emotion by remembering important events that occurred in that place or by labeling a place
with a certain character.
15. Space - Defined by Doreen Massey and Pat Jess as "social relations stretched out"
AP Human Geography
Rubenstein Vocabulary List // Chapter 6 Language
1. Backward Reconstruction - the tracking of sound shifts and hardening of consonants
backwards toward the period of the original language.
2. Conquest Theory - Proto-Indo-European diffused into Europe, then spread westward,
overpowering earlier inhabitants, beginning the diffusion and differentiation of Indo-European
tongues.
3. Creole language - A language that began as a pidgin language, but was adopted as the mother
tongue by a people in place of the mother language.
4. Deep Reconstruction - Technique using the vocabulary of an extinct language to recreate the
language that preceded the extinct language.
5. Dialect - Local or regional differences of a language, involves pronunciation variation.
6. Dialect Chains - A set of contiguous dialects in which the dialects nearest to each other at any
place in the chain are most closely related.
7. Dispersal Hypothesis - Indo-European languages arose from Proto-Indo-European languages,
which were first carried, to Southeast Asia, the Caspian sea, and across Russian plains into the
Balkans.
8. Extinct Language - Language without any native speakers.
9. Germanic languages - Languages (English, German, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) that
reflect the expansion of peoples out of Northern Europe to the west and south.
10.Global Language - the language used most commonly around the world; defined on the basis
of either the number of speakers of the language, or the prevalence of use in commerce in
trade.
11.Isogloss - A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs.
12.Language - A set of sounds and symbols that are used for communication.
13.Language Convergence - The collapsing of two languages into one resulting from the
consistent spatial interaction of peoples with different languages.
14.Language Divergence - When the language breaks into dialects due to the lack of spatial
interaction among speakers of the language, continued isolation creates discrete new
languages.
15.Language Family - Group of languages with a shared but a fairly distant origin.
16.Language Subfamilies - Divisions within a language family where the commonalities are more
definite and the origin is more recent.
17.Lingua Franca - a language used as a common language between speakers whose native
languages are different for the purposes of trade or commerce.
18.Monolingual - When only one language is spoken.
19.Multilingual - When more than one language is spoken.
20.Mutual Intelligibility - The ability for two people to understand each other when speaking.
21.Nostratic - Believed to be the ancestral language of Proto-Indo-European,
22.Dravidian, and Kartvelian languages.
23.Official Language - In multilingual countries the language chosen is often educated, and
politically powerful elite, to promote internal cohesion: usually the language of the courts and
governments.
24.Pidgin language - When parts of two languages are combined in a simplified structure and
vocabulary.
25.Proto-Indo-European - Linguistic hypothesis proposing the existence of an ancestral IndoEuropean language that is the hearth of ancient Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit languages, which
would link modern languages from Scandinavia to North Africa and From North America
through parts of Asia and Australia.
26.Romance languages - Languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese) that lie
in the areas that was once controlled by the Roman Empire but were not subsequently
overwhelmed.
27.Slavic languages - Languages (Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Slovenian, SerboCroatian, and Bulgarian) that developed as Slavic people migrated from a base in present day
Ukraine close to 2000 years ago.
28.Sound Shift - Slight changes in a word across languages within a subfamily or through a
language family from the present backward toward its origin.
29.Standard language - The variant of a language that a country's political and intellectual elite
seek to promote as the norm for use in schools, government, the media, and other aspects of
public life.
30.Toponyms - Place name.