| A | B |
|---|
| Continental Divide | a high point or ridge that determines the direction rivers flow |
| headwaters | the source of a stream or river |
| tributary | smaller river or stream that feeds into a larger river |
| fall line | a boundary in the eastern U.S. where the higher land of the Piedmont drops to the lower Atlantic coastal plain |
| fossil fuel | a resource formed in the earth by plant and animal remains |
| fishery | freshwater or salt water areas in which fish or sea animals are caught |
| aquaculture | the cultivation of seafood |
| hurricane | a large, powerful windstorm that forms over warm ocean waters |
| prairie | an inland grassland area |
| supercell | a violent thunderstorm that can spawn tornadoes |
| timberline | elevation above which it is too cold for trees to grow |
| Chinook | seasonal warm wind that blows down the Rockies in later winter and early spring |
| blizzard | a snowstorm with winds of more than 35 miles per hour, temperatures below freezing, and visibility of less than 1,320 feet for 3 hours or more |
| immigration | the movement of people into one country from another |
| Sunbelt | mild climate region in the southern United States |
| urbanization | the movement of people from rural areas into cities |
| metropolitan | area region that includes a central city and its surrounding suburbs |
| suburb | outlying community around a city |
| urban sprawl | the spreading of urban developments on undeveloped land near a city |
| megalopolis | a “great city” that is made up of several large and small cities such as the area between Boston and Washington D.C. |
| dry farming | farming method used in dry regions in which land is plowed and planted deeply to hold water in the soil |
| bilingual | speaking or using two languages |
| literacy rate | the percentage of people in a given place who can read and write |
| jazz | musical form that developed in the United States in the early 1900s’, blending African rhythms and European harmonies |
| province | an administrative district or division of a country |
| Inuit | a member of the Arctic native peoples of North America |
| dominion | a partially self-governing country with close ties to another country |
| Parliament | in Canada, national legislature made up of the Senate and the House of Commons |
| Quebecois | a French-speaking inhabitant of Quebec |
| American Free Trade Agreement | trade agreement made in 1994 by Canada, the United States and Mexico |
| market economy | an economic system based on free enterprise, in which business are privately owned, and production and prices are determined by supply and demand |
| postindustrial | an economy with less emphasis on heavy industry and manufacturing and more emphasis on services and technology |
| central business district | the traditional business and commercial center of a city or town, sometimes referred to as downtown |
| retooling | converting old factories for use in new industries |
| commodity | goods produced for sale |
| arable | suitable for growing crops |
| monopoly | total control of a type of industry by one person or one company |
| global economy | the merging of resource management systems in which countries are interconnected and dependent on one another for goods and services |
| trade deficit | spending more money on imports than earning from exports |
| tariff | a tax on imports or exports |
| trade surplus | earning more money from export sales than spending for imports |
| outsourcing | the practice of subcontracting manufacturing work to outside companies, especially foreign or nonunion companies |
| clear-cutting | the removal of all trees in a stand of timber |
| overfishing | harvesting fish to the extent that certain species are depleted and the fishing area made less valuable |
| acid rain | precipitation carrying large amounts of dissolved acids which damages buildings, forests, and crops, and kills wildlife |
| smog | haze caused by the interaction of ultraviolet solar radiation with chemical fumes from automobile exhausts and other pollution sources |
| eutrophication | process by which a body of water becomes too rich in dissolved nutrients, leading to plant growth that depletes oxygen |
| confluence | the meeting of two or more bodies of water |
| Rust belt | postindustrial region straddling the Northeastern and the East North Central States, referring to economic decline, population loss and urban decay due to the shrinking of its once powerful industrial sector |
| multinationals | can refer to a person or place belonging to or operating in two or more countries |
