| A | B |
|---|
| urban morphology | the study of the physical form and structure of urban places |
| city | a conglomeration of people and buildings clustered together to serve as a center of politics, culture, and economics |
| urban | the buildup of the central city and the suburban realm-the city and the surrounding environs connected to the city |
| agricultural village | a relatively small, egalitarian village, where most of the population was involved in agriculture. Starting over 10,000 years ago, people began to cluster in agricultural villages as they stayed in one place to tend to their crops |
| agricultural surplus | one of two components, together with social stratification, that enable the formation of cities; agricultural production in excess of that which the producer needs for his or her own sustenance and that of his or her familiy and which is then sold for consumption by others |
| social stratification | one of two components, together with agricultural surplus, which enables the formation of cities, the differentiation of society into classes based on wealth, power, production, and prestige |
| leadership class | (or urban elite) consist of a group of decision makers and organizers who controlled the resources, and often the lives, of others |
| first urban revolution | the innovation of the city |
| Mesopotamia | region of great cities (e.g. Ur and Babylon) located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; chronologically the first urban hearth, dating to 3500 BCE, and which was founded in the Fertile Crescent |
| Nile River Valley | chronologically the second urban hearth, dating to 3200 BCE |
| Indus River Valley | chronologically, the third urban hearth, dating 2200 BCE |
| Huang He and Wei | Rivers in present-day China, it was at the confluence of the Huang He and Wei Rivers where chronologically the fourth urban hearth was established around 1500 BCE |
| Mesoamerica | chronologically the fifth urban hearth, dating 200 BCE |
| acropolis | literally "high point of the city". The upper fortified part of an ancient Greek city, usually deoted to religioius purposes |
| agora | in Ancient Greece, public spaces where citizens debated, lectured, judged each other, planned military campaingns, socialized, and traded |
| site | the absolute location of a city, often chosen for the best trade location, the best defensive location, or an important religious location |
| Forum | the focal point of ancient Roman life combining the functions of the ancient Greek acropolis and agora |
| situation | a city's relative location, its place in the region and world around it |
| urban banana | a crescent-shaped zone across Eurasia from England in the west to Japan in the east, including the cities of London, Paris, Venice, Constantinople (Istanbul today), and Tabriz, Samarqand, Kabul, Lahore, Amra, Jaunpur, Xian, Anyang, Kyoto and Osaka |
