| Term | Definition |
| Geographic Information System (GIS) | Computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data. Such maps are created by organizing LAYERS of information to form a combined image. |
| Built environment | The physical artifacts that humans have created that from part of the landscape. Example Buildings, roads, signs and fences |
| Friction of distance | A measure of how much absolute distance affects the interaction between two places |
| Situation | Location of a place relative to another place (Situation describes a places connection to to other places |
| Global Positioning System (GPS ) | a system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers |
| Qualitative data | data associated with a more humanistic approach to geography, often collected through interviews, empirical observations, or the interpretation of texts, artwork, old maps, and other archives |
| Possibilism | Theory that the physical envrionment 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 |
| Space-time compression | The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place as a result of improved communication and transportation systems |
| Environmental determinism | 19th century approach to the study of geography which argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities |
| Field observation | The act of physically visiting a location, place, or region and recording, firsthand information there. |
| Geospatial data | Information that can be tied to a specific place. Besides locations of things, such as mountains or roads or boundaries, it includes human actives and traits. Example: How common is poverty in each U.S. County |
| Natural resources | Materials or substance such as minerals, forests, water, and fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain |
| Remote sensing | The acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods |
| Quantitative data | numerical data |
| Pattern | The geometric or regular arrangement of something in a particular area |
| Landscape analysis | The task of defining and describing landscape |
| Distance decay | The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin. |
| Toponym | Name give to a portion of Earth's Surface |
| Place | A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic |
| Site | Physical characteristics of a place including landforms, climate and resources |
| Sustainability | The use of Earth's renewable and nonrenewable natural resources in ways that do not constrain resource use in the future. |
