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KB geography vocab
All AP Geography vocab words to study for AP test
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Agribusiness | Commercial agriculture characterized by the integration of different steps in the food processing industry, usually through owner ship by large corporations. |
| Agricultural Revolution | The time when human beings first domesticated plants and animals and no longer relied entirely on hunting and gathering. |
| Agriculture | The deliberate effort to modify a portion of Earth's surface through the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock for sustenance or economic gain. |
| Aquaculture/Aquafarming | The cultivation of seafood under controlled conditions |
| Cereal Grain | A grass that yields grain for food |
| Chaff | Husks of grain separated from the seed by threshing |
| Combine | A machine that reaps, threshes, and cleans grain while moving over a field. |
| Commercial Agriculture | Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm. |
| Crop | Any plant gathered from a field as a harvest during a particular season. |
| Crop Rotation | The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year, to avoid exhausting the soil. |
| Desertification | Degradation of land, especially in semiarid areas, primarily because of human actions such as excessive crop planting, animal grazing, and tree cutting. AKA semiarid land degradation. |
| Dietary energy consumption | The amount of food that an individual consumes, measured in kilocalories |
| Double cropping | harvesting twice a year from the same field |
| food security | physical, social, and economic access at all times to safe and nutritious food sufficient to meet dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life |
| grain | seed of a cereal grass |
| green revolution | rapid diffusion of new agricultural technology, especially new high yield seeds and fertilizers |
| Horticulture | the growing of fruits, vegetables, and flowers |
| hull | outer covering of a seed |
| intensive subsistence agriculture | a form of subsistence agriculture in which farmers must expend a relatively large amount of effort to produce the maximum feasible yield from a parcel of land |
| Milkshed | the area surrounding a city from which milk is supplied |
| paddy | the malay word for wet rice, commonly but incorrectly used to describe a sawah |
| pastoral nomadism | a form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals |
| pasture | grass or other plants grown for feeding grazing animals, as well as land used for grazing |
| plantation | a large farm in tropical and subtropical climates that specializes in the production of one or two crops for sale, usually to a more developed country |
| prime agricultural land | the most productive farmland |
| ranching | a form of commercial agriculture in which livestock graze over an extensive area |
| reaper | a machine that cuts cereal grain standing in a field |
| ridge tillage | a system of planting crops on ridge tops in order to reduce farm production costs and promote greater soil conservation |
| Sawah | a flooded field for growing rice |
| shifting cultivation | a form of subsistence agriculture in which people shift activity from one field to another; each field is used for crops for a relatively few year and left fallow for a relatively long period. |
| slash and burn agriculture | another name for shifting cultivation so named because fields are cleared by slashing the vegetation and burning the debris |
| spring wheat | wheat planted in the spring and harvested in the winter |
| subsistence agriculture | agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer's family |
| sustainable agriculture | farming methods that preserve long term productivity of land and minimize pollution, typically by rotating soil restoring crops with cash crops and reducing inputs of fertilizer and pesticides |
| swidden | a patch of land cleared for planting through slashing and burning |
| thresh | to beat out grain from stalks |
| transhumance | the seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pastures |
| truck farming | commercial gardening and fruit farming |
| undernourishment | dietary energy consumption that is continuously below the minimum requirement for maintaining a healthy life and carrying out light physical activity |
| wet rice | rice planted on dry land in a nursery and then moved to a deliberately flooded field to promote growth |
| winnow | to remove chaff by allowing it to be blown away by the wind |
| winter wheat | wheat planted in the autumn and harvested in the early summer |
| abiotic | composed of nonliving or inorganic matter |
| atmosphere | the thin layer of gases surrounding the earth |
| biosphere | all living organisms on earth including plants and animals as well as microorganisms |
| biotic | composed of living organisms |
| cartography | the science of making maps |
| climate | the long term average weather condition at a particular location |
| concentration | the spread of something over a given area |
| connection | relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space |
| conservation | sustainable management of a natural resource |
| contagious diffusion | the rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population |
| cultural ecology | a geographic approach that emphasizes human environment relationships |
| cultural landscape | the 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's distinct tradition |
| density | the frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area |
| Diffusion | the process of spread of a feature or trend form one place to another over time |
| distance decay | the diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin |
| distribution | the arrangement of something across earth's surface |
| ecology | the scientific study of ecosystems |
| ecosystem | a group of living organisms and the abiotic spheres with which they interact |
| environmental determinism | a nineteenth and early 20th century approach to the study of geography that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences |
| expansion diffusion | the spread of a feature or trend among people form one area to another in an additive process |
| formal region | an area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics |
| functional region | an area organized around a node or focal point |
| geographic information science (GIScience) | the development and analysis of data about earth acquired through satellite and other electronic information technologies |
| geographic information system (GIS) | a computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data. |
| global positioning system (GPS) | a system that determines the precise position of something on earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers. |
| globalization | actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope. |
| greenwich mean time (GMT) | the time in zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 0 degrees longitude. |
| hearth | the region from which innovative ideas originate. |
| hierarchical diffusion | the spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places. |
| housing bubble | a rapid increase in the value of houses followed by a sharp decline in their value. |
| hydrosphere | all of the water on earth's surface. |
| international date line | an arc that for the most part follows 180 degrees longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas. |
| Latitude | the numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator |
| lithosphere | earth's crust and a portion of upper mantle directly below the crust |
| location | the position of anything on Earth's surface |
| longitude | the numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of prime meridian |
| map | a two dimensional or flat representation of earth's surface or a portion of it |
| map scale | the relationship between the size of an object on a map and the actual feature on earths surface |
| mental map | a representation of a portion of earth's surface based on what an individual knows about a place, containing personal impressions of what is in the place and where the place is located |
| meridian | an arc drawn on a map between the north and south poles |
| network | a chain of communication that connects places |
| nonrenewable resource | something produced in nature more slowly than it is consumed by humans |
| parallel | a circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians |
| pattern | the geometric or regular arrangement of something in a study area |
| place | a specific point on earth distinguished by a particular characteristic |
| polder | land created by the dutch by draining water from an area |
| possibilism | the 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 |
| preservation | the maintenance of resources in their present condition with as little human impact as possible |
| prime meridian | the meridian, designated as 0 degrees longitude, that passes through the royal observatory at Greenwich, england |
| projection | a system used to transfer locations from earths surface on a flat map |
| region | an area distinguished by a unique combo of trends and features |
| regional studies | an approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area |
| relocation diffusion | the spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another |
| remote sensing | the acquisition of data about earths surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or from other long distance methods |
| renewable resource | something produced in nature more rapidly than it is consumed by humans |
| resource | a substance in the environment that is useful to people, is economically and technologically feasible to access, and is socially acceptable to use |
| scale | generally, the relationship between the portion of earth being studied and earth as a whole |
| site | the physical character of a place |
| situation | the location of a place relative to another place |
| space | the physical gap or interval between two objects |
| space time compression | the reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place as a result of improved communications and transportation systems |
| stimulus diffusion | the spread of an underlying principle even thought a specific characteristic is rejected |
| sustainability | the use of earths renewable and nonrenewable natural resources in ways that do not constrain resource use in the future |
| toponym | the name given to a portion of earths surface |
| transnational corporation | a company that conducts research, operates factories and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located |
| uneven development | the increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy |
| vernacular region | an area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity |
| Acid deposition | sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides emiited by burning fossil fuels that enter the atmosphere where they combine with oxygen and water to form sulfuric acid and nitric acid and then return to Earth's surface |
| Acid precipitation | conversion of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides to acid that returns to earth as rain |
| air pollution | concentration of trace substances such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and solid particulates, at a greater level than occurs in the average air |
| apparel | an article of clothing |
| biochemical oxygen demand | the amount of oxygen required by aquatic bacteria to decompose a given load of organ waste;a measure of water pollution |
| Break of bulk point | a location where transfer is possible from one mode of transportation to another |
| bulk gaining industry | an industry in which the final product weighs more or has a bigger volume than the inputs |
| bulk reducing industry | an industry in which the final product weighs less or has less volume than the inputs |
| chlorofluorocarbon | a gas used as a solvent, a propellant in aerosols, a refrigerant, and in plastic foams and fire extinguishers |
| cottage industry | manufacturing based in homes rather than in factories, commonly found before the industrial revolution |
| ferrous | metals, including iron, that're utilized in making iron and steel |
| fordist production | a form of mass production in which each worker is assigned one specific task to perform repeatedly |
| greenhouse effect | the anticipated increase in earth temperature caused by carbon dioxide trapping some of the radiation emitted by the surface |
| industrial revolution | a series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods |
| just in time delivery | shipment parts and material to arrive at a factory moments before they are needed |
| labor intensive industry | an industry in for which labor costs make up a high percentage of total expenses |
| maquiladora | a factory built by a US company in mexico near the US border to take advantage of the much lower labor costs in mexico |
| new international division of labor | transfer of some types of jobs, especially those requiring low paid, less skilled workers, from more developed to less developed countries |
| nonferrous | metals utilized to make products other than iron and steel |
| nonpoint source pollution | pollution that originates from a large, diffused area |
| outsourcing | a decision by a corporation to turn over much of the responsibility for production to independent suppliers |
| ozone | a gas that absorbs ultraviolet solar radiation, found in the stratosphere, above earths surface |
| photochemical smog | an atmospheric condition formed through a combo of weather conditions and pollution, especially from motor vehicle emissions |
| point source pollution | pollution that enters a body of water from a specific source |
| post fordist production | adoption by companies of flexible work rules, such as the allocation of workers to teams that perform a variety of tasks |
| right to work law | US law that prevents a union and a company from negotiating a contract that requires workers to join the union as a condition of employment |
| sanitary landfill | a place to deposit solid waste, where a layer of earth is bulldozed over garage each day to reduce emissions of gases and odors from the decaying trash |
| site factors | location factors that relate to the costs of a factory's production inside a plant, such as land, labor, and capital |
| situation factors | location factors related to the transportation of materials into a from a factory |
| textile | a fabric made by weaving, used in making clothing |
| vertical integration | an approach typical of traditional mass production in which a company controls all the phases of a highly complex production process |
| agricultural density | the ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture |
| arithmetic density | the total number of people divided by the total land area |
| census | a complete enumeration of a population |
| crude birth rate(CBR) | the total number of live births in a year for every 1000 people alive in the society |
| crude death rate(CDR) | the total number of deaths in a year for every 1000 people alive in the society |
| demographic transition | the process of change in a society's population from a condition of high crude birth and death rates and low rate of natural increase to a condition of low crude birth and death rates, low rate of natural increase, and higher total population |
| demography | the scientific study of population characteristics |
| dependency ratio | the number of people under age 15 and over age 64 compared to the number of people active in the labor force |
| doubling time | the number of years needed to double a population, assuming a constant rate of natural increase |
| ecumene | the portion of earth's surface occupied by permanent human settlement |
| epidemiologic transition | distinctive causes of death in each stage of the demographic transition |
| epidemiology | the branch of medical science concerned with the incidence, distribution, and control of diseases that are prevalent among a population at a special time and are produced by some special causes not generally present in the affected locality |
| industrial revolution | a series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods |
| infant mortality rate(IMR) | the total number of deaths in a year among infants under one year of age for every 1000 live births in a society |
| life expectancy | the average number of years an individual can be expected to live, given current social, economic, and medical conditions. |
| medical revolution | medical technology invented in Europe and north America that has diffused to the poorer countries in latin America, asia, and Africa. |
| natural increase rate (NIR) | the percentage growth of a population in a year,computed as the crude birth rate minus the crude death rate |
| overpopulation | a situation in which the number of people in an area exceeds the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard of living |
| pandemic | disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects a very high proportion of the population |
| physiological density | the number of people per unit area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture |
| population pyramid | a bar graph that represents the distribution of population by age and gender |
| sex ratio | the number of males per 100 females in the population |
| total fertility rate (TFR) | the average number of children a woman will have throughout her childbearing years |
| zero population growth (ZPG) | a decline of the total fertility rate of the point where the natural increase rate equals zero |
| asylum seeker | someone who has migrated to another country in the hope of being recognized as a refugee |
| brain drain | large scale emigration by talented people |
| chain migration | migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there |
| circulation | short term, repetitive, or cyclical movements that recur on a regular basis |
| counterurbanization | net migration from urban to rural areas in more developed countries |
| emigration | migration from a location |
| floodplain | the area subject to flooding during a given number of years, according to historical trends |
| forced migration | permanent movement, usually compelled by cultural factors |
| guest worker | a term once used for a worker who migrated to the developed countries of northern and western Europe usually from southern and eastern Europe or from north Africa, in search of a higher paying job |
| immigration | migration to a new location |
| internal migration | permanent movement within a particular country |
| internally displaced person | someone who has been forced to migrate for similar political reasons as a refugee but has not migrated over an international border |
| international migration | permanent movement from one country to another |
| interregional migration | permanent movement from one region of a country to another |
| intervening obstacle | an environmental or cultural feature of a landscape that hinders migration |
| intraregional migration | permanent movement within one region of a country |
| migration | a form of relocation diffusion involving a permanent move to a new location |
| migration transition | a change in the migration pattern in a society that results from industrialization, population growth, and other social and economic changes that also produce the demographic transition |
| mobility | all types of movement between locations |
| net migration | the difference between the level of immigration and the level of emigration |
| pull factor | a factor that induces people to move to a new location |
| push factor | a factor that induces people to move to a new location |
| quotas | in reference to migration, laws that place maximum limits on the number of people who can immigrate to a country each year |
| refugees | people who are forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion |
| unauthorized immigration | people who enter a country without proper documents to do so |
| voluntary migration | permanent movement undertaken by choice |
| custom | the frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that becomes characteristic of the group of people performing the act |
| folk culture | culture traditionally practiced by small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups |
| habit | a repetitive act performed by a particular individual |
| popular culture | culture found in large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics |
| taboo | a restriction on behavior imposed by social custom |
| terroir | the contribution of a location's distinctive physical features to the way food tastes |
| creole/creolized language | a language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated |
| denglish | a combo of german and english |
| dialect | a regional variety of a language distinguished by vocab, spelling, and pronunciation |
| ebonics | a dialect spoken by African americans |
| extinct language | a language that was once used by people in daily activities but is no longer used |
| franglais | a term used by the French for English words that have entered the French language |
| isogloss | a boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate |
| isolated language | a language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family |
| language | a system of communication through the use of speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people to have the same meaning |
| language branch | a collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago |
| language family | a collection of languages related to to each other through a common ancestor long before related history |
| language group | a collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocab |
| lingua franca | a language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages |
| literary tradition | a language that is written as well as spoken |
| logogram | a symbol that represents a word rather that a sound |
| official language | the language adopted for use by the government for the conduct of business and publication of documents |
| pidgin language | a form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocab of a lingua franca |
| received pronunciation (RP) | the dialect of English associated with upper class Britons living in London and now considered a standard in the UK |
| spanglish | a combo of Spanish and English spoken by Hispanic americans |
| standard language | the form of a language used for official government business, education, and mass communication |
| vulgar latin | a form of latin used in daily conversation by ancient romans, as opposed to the standard dialect |
| agnosticism | belief that nothing can be known about whether God exists |
| animism | belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, have a discrete spirit and conscious life |
| atheism | belief that God does not exist |
| autonomous religion | a religion that does not have a central authority but shares ideas and cooperates informally |
| branch | a large and fundamental division within a religion |
| caste | the class or distinct hereditary order into which a hindu is assigned, according to religious law |
| cosmogony | a set of religious beliefs concerning the origin of the universe |
| denomination | a division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations into a single legal and administrative body |
| ethnic religion | a religion with a relatively concentrated spatial distribution whose principles are likely to be based on the physical characteristics of the particular location in which its adherents are located |
| fundamentalism | literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic principles of a religion |
| ghetto | during the middle ages, a neighborhood in a city set up by law to be inhabited only by jews; now used to denote a section of a city in which members of any minority group live because of social, legal, or economic pressure |
| hierarchical religion | a religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control |
| missionary | an individual who helps to diffuse a universalizing religion |
| monotheism | the doctrine or belief in the existence of only one god |
| pagan | a follower of a polytheistic religion |
| pilgrimage | a journey to a place considered sacred for religious purposes |
| polytheism | belief in or worship of more than one god |
| sect | a relatively small group that has broken away from an established denomination |
| solstice | an astronomical event that happens twice a year when the tilt of earth's axis is most inclined toward or away from the sun |
| syncretic | a religion that combines several traditions |
| universalizing religion | a religion that attempts to appeal to all people, not just those living in a particular location |
| apartheid | laws in south Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas |
| balkanization | a process by which a state breaks down through conflicts among its ethnicities |
| balkanized | descriptive of a small geographic area that could not be successfully organized into one or more stable states because it was inhabited by many ethnicities with complex, long standing antagonisms toward each other |
| blockbusting | a process by which real estate agents convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices because of fear that persons of color will soon move into the neighborhood |
| centripetal force | an attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state |
| ethnic cleansing | a process in which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous group |
| ethnicity | identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of a common heredity and cultural traditions |
| genocide | the mass killing of a group of people in an attempt to eliminate the entire group from existence |
| nationalism | loyalty and devotion to a particular nationality |
| nationality | identity with a group of people that share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular place as a result of being born there |
| race | identity with a group of people descended from a biological ancestor |
| racism | belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race |
| racist | a person who subscribes to the beliefs of racism |
| sharecropper | a person who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent and repays loans by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops |
| triangular slave trade | a practice, primarily during the eighteenth century, in which European ships transported slaves from Africa to Caribbean islands, molasses from the Caribbean to Europe, and trade goods from Europe to africa |
| anocracy | a country that is not fully democratic or fully autocratic, but rather displays a mix of the 2 types |
| autocracy | a country that is run according to the interests of the ruler rather than the people |
| balance of power | a condition of roughly equal strength between opposing countries or alliances of countries |
| boundary | an invisible line that marks the extent of a state's territory |
| city state | a sovereign state comprising a city and its immediately surrounding countryside |
| colonialism | an attempt by one country to establish settlements and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory |
| colony | a territory that is legally tied to a sovereign state rather than completely independent |
| compact state | a state in which the distance from the center to any boundary does not vary significantly |
| democracy | a country in which citizens elect leaders and can run for office |
| elongated state | a state with a long narrow shape |
| federal state | an internal organization of a state that allocates most powers to units of local government |
| fragmented state | a state that includes several discontinuous pieces of territory |
| frontier | a zone separating two states in which neither state exercises political control |
| gerrymandering | the process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefitting the party in power |
| landlocked state | a state that does not have a direct outlet to the sea |
| microstate | a state that encompasses a very small land area |
| multiethnic state | a state that contains two or more ethnic groups with traditions of self determination that agree to coexist peacefully by recognizing each other as distinct nationalities |
| nation state | a state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality |
| perforated state | a state that completely surrounds another one |
| prorupted state | an otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension |
| self determination | the concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves |
| sovereignty | ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states |
| state | an area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government that has control over its internal and foreign affairs |
| terrorism | the systematic use of violence by a group in order to intimidate a population of coerce a government into granting its demands |
| unitary state | an internal organization of a state that places most power in the hands of central government officials |
| active solar energy systems | solar energy systems that collects energy through the use of mechanical devices such as photovoltaic cells or flat plate collectors |
| adolescent fertility rate | the number of births per 1000 woman ages 15 to 19 |
| biomass fuel | fuel that derives form plant material and animal waste |
| breeder reactor | a nuclear power plant that creates its own fuel from plutonium |
| demand | the quantity of something that consumers are willing and able to buy |
| developed country (MDC) | a country that has progressed relatively far along a continuum of development |
| developing country (less developed country [LDC]) | a country that is at a relatively early stage in the process of economic development |
| development | a process of improvement in the material conditions of people through diffusion of knowledge and technology |
| fair trade | an alternative to international trade that emphasizes small business and worker owned and democratically run cooperatives and requires employers to treat workers fairly. |
| female labor force participation rate | the percentage of women holding full time jobs outside the home |
| fission | the splitting of an atomic nucleus to release energy |
| foreign direct investment (FDI) | investment made by a foreign company in the economy of another country |
| fossil fuel | an energy source formed from the residue of plants and animals buried millions of years ago |
| fracking | the pumping of water at high pressure to break apart rocks in order to release natural gas |
| fusion | creation of energy by joining the nuclei of two hydrogen atoms to form helium |
| gender inequality index (GII) | a measure of the extent of each country's gender inequality |
| gross domestic product (GDP) | the value of the total output of goods and services produced in a country in a given time period |
| gross national income (GNI) | the value of the output of goods and services produced in a country in a year, including money that enters and leaves the country |
| human development index (HDI) | an indicator of the level of development for each country, constructed by the UN, that is based on income, literacy, education, and life expectancy |
| hydroelectric power | power generated from moving water |
| inequality adjusted HDI (IHDI) | modification of the HDI to account for inequality within a country |
| literacy rate | the percentage of a country's people who can read and write |
| maternal mortality ratio | the number of women who die giving birth per 100000 births |
| microfinance | provision of small loans and other financial services to individuals and small businesses in developing countries |
| millennium development goals | eight international development goals that all member of the UN have agreed to achieve by 2015 |
| passive solar energy systems | solar energy systems that collect energy without the use of mechanical devices |
| photovoltaic cell | a solar energy cell, usually made from silicon, that collects solar rays to generate electricity |
| potential reserve | the amount of a resource in deposits not yet identified but thought to exist |
| primary sector | the portion of the economy concerned with the direct extraction of materials from earth's surface, through agriculture and a few other activities |
| productivity | the value of a particular product compared to the amount of labor needed to make it |
| proven reserve | the amount of a resource remaining in discovered deposits |
| purchasing power parity (PPP) | the amount of money needed in one country to purchase the same goods and services in another country |
| radioactive waste | materials from a nuclear reaction that emit radiation; contact with such particles may be harmful or lethal to people so the materials must be safely stored for thousands of years |
| secondary sector | the portion of the economy concerned with manufacturing useful products through processing, transforming, and assembling raw materials |
| structural adjustment program | economic policies imposed on less developed countries by international agencies to create conditions encouraging international trade |
| supply | the quantity of something that producers have available for sale |
| tertiary sector | the portion of the economy concerned with transportation, communications, and utilities, sometimes extended to the provision of all goods and services to people, in exchange for payment |
| uneven development | development of core regions at the expense of those on the periphery |
| value added | the gross value of a product minus the costs of raw materials and energy |
| Basic industries | industries that sell their products or services primarily to consumers outside the settlement |
| business services | services that primarily meet the need of other businesses, including professional, financial and transportation services |
| central place | a market center for exchange of services by people attracted from the surrounding area |
| central place theory | theory that explains the distribution of services based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services |
| clustered rural settlement | a rural settlement in which the houses and farm buildings of each family are situated close to each other, with fields surrounding the settlement |
| consumer services | businesses that provide services primarily to individual consumers, including retail services and educations, health, and leisure services |
| dispersed rural settlement | a rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms rather than clustered villages |
| economic base | a community's collection of basic industries |
| enclosure movement | the process of consolidating small land holdings into a smaller number of larger farms in England during the 18th century |
| gravity model | a model which holds that the potential use of a service at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel to reach the service |
| market area (Hinterland) | the area surrounding a central place from which people are attracted to use the place's goods and services |
| nonbasic industries | industries that sell their products primarily to consumers in the community |
| primate city | the largest settlement in a country, if it has more than twice as many people as the second ranking settlement |
| primate city rule | a pattern of settlements in a country such that the largest settlement has more than twice as many people as the second ranking settlement |
| public services | services offered by the government to provide security and protection for citizens and businesses |
| range (of a service) | the maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service |
| rank size rule | a pattern of settlements in a country such that the nth larges settlement is 1/n the population of the largest settlement |
| service | any activity that fulfills a human want or need and returns money to those who provide it |
| settlement | a permanent collection of buildings and inhabitant |
| threshold | the minimum number of people needed to support a service |
| urbanization | an increase in the percentage of the number of people living in urban settlements |
| Annexation | legally adding land area to a city in the US |
| census tract | an area delineated by the US bureau of the census for which statistics are published |
| central business district | the area of a city where retail and office activities are clustered |
| city | an urban settlement that has been legally incorporated into an independent, self governing unit |
| combined statistical area | in the US, two or more contiguous core based statistical areas tied together by commuting patterns |
| concentric zone model | a model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are spatially arranged in a series of rings |
| core based statistical area | In the US, the combo of all metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan statistical areas |
| council of government | a cooperative agency consisting of representatives of local governments in a metropolitan area in the US |
| density gradient | the change in density in an urban area from the center to the periphery |
| edge city | a large node of office and retail activities on the edge of an urban area |
| filtering | a process of change in the use of a house, from single family owner occupancy to abandonment |
| food desert | an area in a developed country where healthy food is difficult to obtain |
| gentrification | a process of converting an urban neighborhood from a predominantly low income, renter occupied area to a predominantly middle class, owner occupied area |
| greenbelt | a ring of land maintained as parks, agriculture, or other types of open space to limit the sprawl of an urban area |
| megalopolis | a continuous urban complex in the northeastern US |
| multiple nuclei model | a model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a collection of nodes activities |
| peripheral model | a model of north America urban areas consisting of an inner city surrounded by large suburban residential and business areas tied together by a beltway or ring road |
| primary census statistical area (PCSA) | in the US, all of the combined statistical areas plus all of the remaining metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan statistical areas |
| Public housing | housing owned by the government |
| redlining | a process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries |
| rush hour | the 4 consecutive 15 minute periods in the morning and evening with the heaviest volumes of traffic |
| sector model | a model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a series |
| smart growth | Legislation and regulations to limit suburban sprawl and preserve farmland |
| social area analysis | statistical analysis used to identify where people of similar living standards, ethnic background, and lifestyle live within an urban area. |
| sprawl | development of new housing sites at relatively low density and at locations that are not contiguous to the existing built up area |
| squatter settlement | an area within a city in a less developed country in which people illegally establish residences on land they do not own or rent and erect homemade structures |
| underclass | a group in a society prevented from participating in the material benefits of a more developed society because of a variety of social and economic characteristics |
| urban area | a dense core of census tracts, densely settled suburbs, and low density land that links the dense suburbs with the core |
| urban cluster | in the US, an urban area with between 2,500 and 50,000 inhabitants |
| urbanized area | in the US, an urban area with a at least 50,000 inhabitants |
| zoning ordinance | a law that limits the permitted uses of land and maximum density of development in a community |
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