| A | B |
|---|
| built landscape | features and patterns reflecting human occupation and use of natural resources |
| concentration/dispersion | extent of a feature's spread over space |
| scattered/dispersed | rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms rather than clustered villages |
| clustered/agglomerated | rural settlement in which the houses and farm buildings of each family are situated close to each other and fields surround the settlement |
| connectivity | relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space |
| cultural ecology | geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships |
| cultural landscape | fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group |
| culture | the body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group of people's distinct tradition |
| density | frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area |
| arithmetic density | the total number of people divided by the total land area |
| agricultural density | ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture |
| physiological density | number of people per unit area of arable land (land suitable for agriculture) |
| diffusion | process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time |
| relocation diffusion | spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another |
| expansion diffusion | spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process |
| hierarchical diffusion | spread of a feature or trend from on key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places |
| contagious diffusion | rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population |
| stimulus diffusion | spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected |
| direction-absolute | exact direction on a compass down to the degrees, minutes, and seconds |
| direction-relative | general direction such as north south east and west |
| distance decay | diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin |
| distortion | inaccuracy in the process of representing a spherical surface on a flat sheet of paper (flattened orange peal) |
| distribution | arrangement of something across Earth's surface |
| environmental determinism | 19th and early 20th century approach to study of geography that argued that general laws sought by human geographers could be found in physical sciences. Geography was thus the study of how the physical environment caused human activities |
| friction of distance | distance usually requires some amount of effort, money, and/or energy to overcome |
| geographic information system (GIS) | computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data |
| global positioning system | system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers |
| hearth | region from which innovative ideas originate |
| land ordnance of 1785 | law that divided much of the US into a system of townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers |
| latitude | numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator (0 degrees) |
| longitude | numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian (0 degrees) |
| location | position of anything on Earth's surface |
| location-absolute | Location of a city or destination on the planet is its relationship to another place or nearby landmarks |
| location-relative | definitive location of a place using a recognized coordinate system |
| map | two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth's surface or a portion of it |
| thematic map | map related to a topic, theme or subject, emphasize a single topic such as yield, soil type, or land ownership |
| statistical map | A special type of map in which the variation in quantity of a factor such as rainfall, population, or crops in a geographic area is indicated; a dot map is one type |
| cartogram | A small diagram, on the face of a map, showing quantitative information; an abstracted and simplified map the base of which is not true to scale |
| dot map | map using dots to show the presence of a feature or occurrence and display a spatial pattern |
| choropleth map | a thematic map in which areas are shaded or patterned in proportion to the measurement of the statistical variable being displayed on the map |
| isoline map | A map containing continuous lines joining all points of identical value |
| mental map | internal representation of a portion of Earth's surface based on what an individual knows about a place, containing personal impressions of what is in a place and where places are located |
| pattern | geometric or regular arrangement of something in a study area |
| linear pattern | houses along a street |
| centralized pattern | relationship among locations marked by concentration; locations are clustered and concentrated in a particular place (powerplants around a river |
| random pattern | Having no specific pattern |
| place | specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular character |
| possibilism | theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives |
| projection | system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map |
| region | area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features |
| region-formal/uniform/homogeneous | area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics |
| region-functional/nodal | area organized around a node or focal point |
| region-perceptual/vernacular | area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity |
| remote sensing | acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods |
| scale | relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole; relationship between size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface |
| sequent occupance | succeeding stages of human inhabitation over time on one site, each stage is seen as being established by its predecessor |
| site | physical character of a place |
| situation | location of a place relative to other places |
| space-time compression | reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation systems |
| spatial | three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. |
| toponym | name given to a portion of Earth's surface |
