Geography+Vocabulary

** Activity Spaces  ** places we travel to routinely in our rounds of daily activity, such as the bus stop, school cafeteria, after school job, etc. DBpg 16 ** Agriculture  ** agriculture means sedentism--living permanently in one place. This was itself new to human beings, and it may have seemed very constraining to the first people to experience this way of life. Living in one spot permanently means exploiting a relatively small amount of land very intensively (rather than exploiting a large amount of land extensively, as hunter-gatherers did), and over a long period of time. Contrasting hunting and gathering as a mode of life to agriculture, means modifying the environment in order to exploit the environment more effectively. Agriculture alters both the animals and plants it domesticates. Ultimately, it changes the very landscape itself. It alters both the plants and animals it domesticates; changing the landscape, planting seeds to grow food and domesticating livestock. ** Animistic religion  ** belief that inanimate objects such as: mountains, boulders, rivers, and trees possess sprits and should be revered. **  C   ** ** Cartography  ** the making of maps; cartographer, one who makes maps ** Culture  ** refers not only to the music, literature, and arts of a society but also to all the other features of its way of life: modes of dress, living habits, food preferences, architecture, layout of farm fields, systems of education, government and law DBpg 26-27 **  Cultural landscape  ** mans imprint on the land e.g. buildings, signs roads, damns, clear cutting trees, etc DBpg 12 ** Local cultural ** a group of people in a particular place who see themselves as a collective or community that share experience, customs, traits, and who work to preserve this culture to distinguish themselves from others DPpg 101 ** Cultural Trait **a single attribute of a culture E.G. wearing of a turban; ** Cultural Complex **a combination of cultural traits E.G.     **  Cyclic movement  ** involves shorter periods away from home with intent on returning e.g. Snowbirds, migrant farm workers, etc. DBpg 72 **  D   ** ** Diffusion  ** spread of things such as: ideas, language, religion, culture DBpg 28-30, 122 ** Distribution  ** how something is distributed, located across space, usually used when describing a state or region. E.g. Population Distribution is where people are located in a region. ** Spatial Distribution **by looking at a map geographers can understand how something is distributed across space and raise questions about how the arrangement came about, what processes create and sustain a particular pattern of distribution, and what relationships exists between places and things. DPpg 9 **  E   ** ** Epidemic  ** a regional outbreak of a disease DPpg 10 ** Ethnicity  ** from the Greek word: ethnos meaning people or nation. Idea that certain people are closely bounded, even related, in a certain place offer time. DBpg 135-36 **  G   ** ** Generalization in Maps  ** all maps simplify the world. To do this cartographers generalize the information presented on the map rather than specific information. E.G. on a precipitation map of NE Florida the shading may show all of Jacksonville getting the same amount of annual rainfall even though is varies by several inches depending on the part of town. DBpg 16-17 ** Geographic Information Systems (GIS  ****  )  ** A geographic information system (GIS) allows us to view, understand, question, interpret, and visualize data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts. [] DBpg 17-18 ** Globalization  ** set of processes that are increasing interactions, deepening relationships and heightening interdependence without regard to countries borders DBpg 8 ** Global Positioning System (GPS)  ** satellite navigation system that provides extraordinary accuracy in location DPpg 14  [] ** Geocaching  ** a hunt for a cache whose coordinates are placed on the internet by other geocachers all over the world. DBpg 14 [] **  H   ** ** Hearth  ** point of origin such as: hearth of Islam, hearth of Hip Hop, hearth of democracy, etc. ** Hinduism  ** ranks 3rd in members after Christianity and Islam. Oldest organized religion, 4000 years old, hearth: Indus River valley what is today Pakistan. Polytheistic due to presence of many gods; diffusion: Western Indian sub-continent Eastward. ** Human-Environment  ** the relationship between humans and the physical world e.g. Why has the Army Corps of Engineers drain the Florida Everglades over the years? Second of the five themes of geography DBpg 11 ** Human Geography  ** focuses on how: people make place, organize space and society, interact with each other in places and across space, and make sense of themselves and others. DBpg 8 ** Hunter-gather  ** exploits many different plant resources for food, fiber, medicine, soap substitutes, etc. It is not unusual for groups to recognize and exploit hundreds of plants. Location: arctic region, due to climate more hunter oriented, temperate region balance hunter-gather. **  L   ** ** Landscape  ** core element of geography. Geographers use the term landscape to refer to the material characteristics of a place: natural features, human structures, and other tangible objects that give a place a particular form. DBpg 12 **  Language    ** ** Backward and Deep reconstruction  ** tracking the changes in the sounds of a language backwards toward the original language. This makes possible the distinctions of an ** extinct language ( **one that has no native speakers). One half of the worlds 7,000 languages are threatened with extinction. [] ** Lingua Franca  ** language used by speakers of different languages to conduct trade. Many linguists consider English the current Lingua Franca. ** Pidgin Language **when two or more languages are in contact with each other and combine parts of their respective language in a simplified form. Example: Spanglish, a combining of English and Spanish. Pidgin language are unifying forces in a linguistically divided world. [] ** Proto-Indo-European  ** languages have more speakers than any other language family. The languages have similar vocabulary and grammar. Major branches: Greek, Latin, Germanic, Slavic [] [] ** Location  ** how the geographical position of people and things on the earth’s surface affects what happens and why. First theme of five themes of geography DBpg 11 ** Location theory  ** model of locational properties that attempts to answer the “Why” in both theory and practical terms, phenomena are located, e.g. Why are towns located spaced the way they are; Where is the best place to locate a Super Target. DBpg 11 **  M   ** ** Maize  ** what Americans tend to call “corn” was first domesticated in Meso-America several thousand years ago ** Medical geography  ** mapping of distributions of disease DBpg 9 ** Mental Map  ** maps we carry in our heads of places we have been and places we have merely heard of DBpg 15-15 ** Migration  ** human movement over geographical space with a degree of permanence. DBpg 71-71 ** Movement  ** mobility of people, goods and ideas accros the surface of the earth. Fifth theme of geography DB pg 11 **  N   ** ** Nomadism  ** Nomad; type of cyclic movement that is a matter of survival, cultural tradition found in Asia & Africa. **  P   ** ** Pandemic  ** a worldwide outbreak of disease DBpg 10 ** Pastoralism  ** pastoral; the herding of domesticated or partially domesticated animals. ** Pattern  ** see ** Distribution **DBpg 9 ** Pestilence  ** insects or rodents destroying food or crops ** Physical geography  ** study of the physical phenomena on earth such as: landforms, their origins and changes DBpg 9 ** Place  ** all points on the surface of the earth have unique human and physical characteristics. ** Sense of place **infusing a place with meaning and emotion such as remembering important events at a place (Twin Towers, NYC, 9.11) Fourth theme of geography ** Perception of Place **development of a sense of a place that one has never been through books, movies, video and pictures. DBpg 11 ** Polytheistic  ** worship of more than on deity (god) DBpg 181 **  R   ** ** Race  ** is constructed identity; biologically all people are part of the same race, the human race. Original constructed identities were: Negroid, Caucasoid and Mongoloid (Negro, Caucasian & Asian) ** Reference Map  ** shows locations of places and geographic features DBpg 14 ** Region  ** an area on the earth that has similar characteristics such as: physical, economic, political, or cultural characteristics. MLpg7 ** Formal Region ** It is characterized by a common human property, such as the presence of people who share a particular language, religion, nationality, political identity or culture, or by a common physical property, such as the presence of a particular type of climate, landform, or vegetation. Political entities such as counties, states, countries, and provinces are formal regions because they are defined by a common political identity. Other formal regions include climate regions (e.g., areas with a Mediterranean climate), landform regions (e.g., the Ridge and Valley and Piedmont regions of Pennsylvania), and economic regions (e.g., the wheat belt of Kansas, the citrus-growing areas of south Texas, and the irrigated farmlands of the Central Valley of California). Formal regions can be defined by measures of population, per capita income, ethnic background, crop production, population density and distribution, or industrial production, or by mapping physical characteristics such as temperature, rainfall, growing season, and average date of first and last frost. . ** Functional ** ** Region  ** It is organized around a node or focal point with the surrounding areas linked to that node by transportation systems, communication systems, or other economic association involving such activities as manufacturing and retail trading. A typical functional region is a metropolitan area (MA) as defined by the Bureau of Census. For example, the New York MA is a functional region that covers parts of several states. It is linked by commuting patterns, trade flows, television and radio broadcasts, newspapers, travel for recreation and entertainment. Other functional regions include shopping regions centered on malls or supermarkets, area served by branch banks, and ports and their hinterlands. ** Perceptual Region  ** It is a construct that reflects human feelings and attitudes about areas and is therefore defined by people’s shared subjective images of those areas. It tends to reflect the element of people’s mental maps, and, although it may help to impose a personal sense of order and structure on the world, it often does so on the basis of stereotypes that may be inappropriate or incorrect. Thus southern California, Dixie, and the upper Midwest are perceptual regions that are thought of as being spatial units, although they do not have precise borders or even commonly accepted regional characteristics and names. [] ** Relative Location  ** describes a place in relation to another place e.g. Miami’s relative location to Jacksonville is South; the beach’s relative location to Sandalwood is East. DBpg 15 ** Remote Sensing  ** collection of data on the earth by satellites aircraft, hot air balloons. E.G. satellite picture of the eye of a hurricane. DBpg 17 ** Reverse migration  ** the return movement of a people from the region they originally left; e.g. freed saves migrated to the north after the Civil War and many descendants returned in the 1960s and 70s with the passage of the civil rights act and the beginning of the sun belt migration **  S   ** ** Scale  ** has two meaning in geography: first is the distance on a map compared to the distance on the earth usually found in the legend section of the map and expressed as: ratio scale 1:30,000,000 1 inch equals 30,000,000 inches or 1 inch equals 500 mile; or more commonly as a bar    ||  Scale where each unit, usually an inch represents a mile of kilometer MLpg 16  Example: miles  || Second, is the territorial extent of such as: local, regional, national, and global space. DBpg 20-21 ** Sequent Occupance  ** cultural succession of different cultures occupying the same place during different time periods and leaving their cultural imprint on the place DPpg 12 ** Shamanism  ** community of faith in which people follow the shaman: religious leader, teach, healer and visionary. DPpg 194 ** Social hierarchies  ** typically certain forms of chieftainship emerged followed gradually by a whole class or classes of people who had managing roles, later becoming the ruling class. ** Spatial Interaction  ** interactions between places dependent on distance, accessibility, transportation, and communication connectivity DBpg 11 ** Spatial perspective  ** study of multiple phenomenons such as: shantytowns, elections, gay neighborhoods, etc. DBpg 11 ** Spatial phenomenon  ** arrangement of places and phenomena, how they are laid out, organized and arranged on earth; how they appear on the landscape (space) DBpg 9 **  T   ** ** Taoism  ** older contemporary of Confucius, Lao-Tsu, published “Book of the Way” about his teachings. Gave rise to concept of “Feng Shui” the art and science of organizing living spaces in order to channel life forces… hearth: Huang He River Valley China DBpg 187-188 ** Thematic Map  ** tells stories, usually showing movement such as 1800s Western migration of the USA, Hitler’s conquest and retreat in Europe, etc. DPpg 14 ** Transhumanance  ** periodic movement of humans and their livestock according to the availability of pastures for food for their animals. DBpg 72
 * VOCABULARY LIST  **
 * || || **  Clan  ** a group of people related by marriage or birth. Part of the political unit Tribe-Clan-Family-individual. In ancient and primitive cultures the method of ruling the people.
 * || || **  Clan  ** a group of people related by marriage or birth. Part of the political unit Tribe-Clan-Family-individual. In ancient and primitive cultures the method of ruling the people.
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