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EHS Ch. 1 Key terms
EHS Ch.1 Key Terms 2009
Question | Answer |
---|---|
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. |
Base Line | An east-west line deignated under the land ordinace of 1785 to facilitate the surveying and numbering of townships in the U.S.A. |
Cartography | The science of making maps |
Concentration | The spread of something over a given area |
Connections | Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space |
Contagious Diffusion | The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population |
Cultural ecology | Geographic approach that enmphasizes human-environment relationships |
Cultural Landscape | 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 of people distinct tradition |
Density | The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area |
Diffusion | The process of spread of a feature or spread of a trend from one place to another over time |
Distance Decay | The diminishing in importance and eventual dissapearance of a phenomenom with increasing distance from its origin |
Distribution | The arrangement of something over Earth's surface |
Environmental Determinism | Humboldt and Ritter concentrated on how the physical environment caused social development |
Expansion Diffusion | The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process |
Formal Region | The area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics |
Functional Region | An area organized around a node or focal point |
Geographic Information System (GIS) | A computer system that organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data |
Global Positioning System (GPS) | A system that determines the precise potion of something on Earth through a series of satelites, tracking stations, and recievers. |
Globalization | Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope |
Greenwich Mean Time | The Time in that time zone encompassing the prime meridian, or zero degree longitude |
Hearth | The region from which innovative ideas originate |
Hierachical Diffusion | The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places |
International Date Line | An arc that from the most part follows the 180 degree longitude although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas. This line seperates 24 hour periods. |
Land Ordinance of 1785 | A law that divided much of the United Sates into a system of townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers |
Latitude | The number system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe in measuring distance north and south of the equator (0 degrees). |
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 the the prime meridian (0 degrees). |
Map | A two - dimensional, or flat representation, of Earth's surface, or a portion of it |
Mental Map | An internal representation of a portion of Earth's surface based on what an individual knows about a place containing personal impressions of what is in a place and where places are located |
Meridian | An arc drawn on a map between the north and south poles |
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 |
Physiological Denisity | The number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture |
Place | A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular character |
Polder | Land created by the Dutch by draining water |
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 |
Prime Meridian | The meridian, designated as 0 degrees longitude, which passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England |
Principal Meridian | A North-South line designated in the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the serving and numbering of townships in the United States |
Projection | The system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map |
Region | An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or 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 Earth's surface from a satelite orbiting the planet or other long distance methods |
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, specifically the relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface |
Section | A square normally 1 mile on a side. The Land Ordinance of 1785 divided townships in the United States into 36 sections |
Site | The physical character of a place |
Situation | The location of a place relative to other places |
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, a result of improved communications and transportation systems |
Stimulus Diffusion | The spread of an underlying principle even though a specific characteristic is rejected |
Toponym | The name given to a portion of Earth's surface |
Townships | A square normally 6 miles on a side. The Land Ordinance of 1785 divided much of the United States into Townships. |
Transnational corporation | A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where it's headquarters or shareholders are located. |
Uneven Development | The increasing gap in ecomomic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy |
Vernacular Region | An area that people believe to exist as a part of their cultural identity. |