| Word | Definition |
| Custom | The frequent repitition of an act to the extent that it becomes characteristic of a group of people performing the act |
| Folk Culture | Culture Traditionally practiced by a small homogeneous rural group living in relative isolation from other groups |
| Habit | The repetitive act performed by a particular individual |
| Popular Culture | Culture found in a large heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics |
| Taboo | A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom |
| religion | Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe. |
| language | Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols. |
| ethnicity | Ethnic character, background, or affiliation |
| developing country - | an area of the world that is changing from uneven growth to more constant economic conditions and that is generally characterized by low rates of urbanization, relatively high rates of infant mortality and illiteracy, and relatively low rates of life expe |
| Geographical Information Systems (GIS) - | a geographic database that contains information about the distribution of physical and human characteristics of places or areas. In order to test hypotheses, maps of one characteristic or a combination can be produced from the database to analyze the data |
| human geography - | one of the two major divisions of systematic geography; the spatial analysis of human population, their cultures, and activities.** |
| physical geography - | one of the two major divisions of systematic geography; the spatial analysis of the structure, processes, and location of the Earth's natural phenomena such as climate, soil, plants, animals, and topography.** |
| region - | an area with one or more common characteristics or features, which give it a measure of homogeneity and make it different from surrounding areas. |
| relative location - | the location of a place or region in relation to other places or regions. |
| migration - | the act or process of people moving from one place to another with the intent of staying at the destination permanently or for a relatively long period of time. |
| push factors - | in migration theory, the social, political, economic, and environmental forces that drive people from their previous location to search for new ones. |
| pull factors - | in migration theory, the social, political, economic, and environmental attractions of new areas that draw people away from their previous location |
| Central Business District (CBD) - | a central area typically containing an intense concentration of office and retail activities.*** |
| gentrification - | the process in urban areas of upper- or middle-class families moving back into a zone in transition, which often surrounds the central business district of a city. |
| inner-city - | the usually older, central part of a city, especially when characterized by crowded neighborhoods in which low-income, often minority groups predominate.** |
| rural area - | an area outside urban concentrations. |
| suburb - | a subsidiary urban area surrounding and connected to the central city. Many are exclusively residential; others have their own commercial centers or shopping malls. |
| urbanization - | a process in which there is an increase in the percentage of people living/working in urban places as compared to rural places. |
| overpopulation - | a situation in which the existing population is too large to be adequately supported by available resources at current levels of consumption. This should not be confused with dense population. |
| apartheid - | literallly, "apartness." The Afrikaans term given to South Africa's policies of racial separation, and the highly segregated socio-geographical patterns they have produced.** |
| diffusion - | the spread of people, ideas, technology, and products among places. |
| mortality rate/crude death rate | the total number of deaths in a year for every 1000 people in a population. |
| nationalism - | a sense of national consciousness and loyalty exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on the promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations. |
| globalization - | an increase in trade and capital flows across national boundaries. |
| race | people who are believed to belong to the same genetic stock |
| language family | A language family is defined as a group of related languages that derive from a common origin, and subdivided into branches composed of more closely related languages |
| language branch | A language branch is a collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago. |
| cultural trait | individual characteristic: a characteristic or quality that distinguishes somebody |
| cultural hearths | cultural hearth is a source area in which a culture has become well established. |
| formal cultural region | A formal cultural region is one in which there is clearly a homogeneous cultural identity on a wide variety of levels. These are often found to map onto specific bioregions, reflecting ancient migrations. |
| functional region | A functional cultural region is one that has been largely brought into being as a function of having a central cultural hub (e.g. a monastery or a TV station). |
| vernacular region | A vernacular cultural region is that 'mental image' of a region which exists in the minds of outsiders. |
| topography, | Detailed, precise description of a place or region. |
| climate | The meteorological conditions, including temperature, precipitation, and wind, that characteristically prevail in a particular region. |
| MDC | enjoys a relatively high standard of living derived through an industrialised, diversified economy. Countries with a very high Human Development Index (HDI) are generally considered developed countries. |
| LDC | A nation where the average income is much lower than in industrial nations, where the economy relies on a few export crops, and where farming is conducted by primitive methods. |
| GDP | The total market value of all the goods and services produced within the borders of a nation during a specified period. |
| HDI | is a comparative measure of poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, childbirth, and other factors for countries worldwide. |
| social indicators | Birth rate, detah rate fertility rate |
| imperialism | The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations. |
| coloniallisim | A policy by which a nation maintains or extends its control over foreign dependencies. |
| birth rate | the number of live births per 1,000 members of the population in a year |
| death rate | the proportion of deaths to the population of an area or group |
| infant mortality rate | the number of deaths during the first year of life per thousand live births |
| unemployment rate | the number of people who are unemployed in an area, often given as a percentage of the total labor force |
| purchasing power parity | is an estimate of the exchange rate required to equalise the purchasing power of different currencies, given the prices of goods and services in the countries concerned. |
| standard of living | (blank) |
| standard of living | A level of material comfort as measured by the goods, services, and luxuries available to an individual, group, or nation. |
| perriphary | farthest from MDC |
| core | closest to teh MDc |
| primary | farming jobs or jobs that have to do with the earth |
| secondary | factory jobs or hands on jobs |
| tertiary | doctors lawyers etc |
| demographic transition | the transition from high birth rates and death rates to low birth and death rates that occurs as part of the economic development of a country from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economy. |
| life expectancy | The number of years that an individual is expected to live as determined by statistics. |
| total fertility rate | which is the amount of babies born by every woman during their reproductive years. |
| zero population growth | The limiting of population increase to the number of live births needed to replace the existing population. |
| natural increase rate | The rate at which a population is increasing (or |
| doubling time | (blank) |
| dependancy ratio | A measure showing the number of dependents (aged 0-14 and over the age of 65) to the total population (aged 15-64). Also referred to as the "total dependency ratio". |
| agricultural revolution | the rise of the first agricultural societies in the neolithic period. |
| agricultural density | The total rural population to the amount of agricultural |
| census | An official, usually periodic enumeration of a population, often including the collection of related demographic information. |
| medical revolution | (blank) |
| arithmetic density | most common way of measuring population density |
| pandemic | Medicine. Epidemic over a wide geographic area and affecting a large proportion of the population: pandemic influenza. |
| sex ratio | The proportion of males to females in a given population, usually expressed as the number of males per 100 females. |
