| Term | Definition |
| Patterns | Description of the spatial distribution of a human or physical phenomenon (e.g., scattered or concentrated). |
| Formal Region | Area of land with common cultural or physical traits. |
| Perception of Place | How a place is envisioned. |
| Perceptual/Vernacular Region | Area of land that an individual perceives as being similar. And that has such strong significance to the people in the area that it becomes the lens through which they see their world and a way people identify themselves. |
| Human Geography | One of the two major divisions of geography; the spatial analysis of human phenomena, including population, cultures, activities, and landscapes. |
| Human-environment interactions | The reciprocal (mutually affecting each other) relationship between humans and the physical world |
| Culture Complex | A group of interrelated cultural traits, such as prevailing dress codes and cooking and eating utensils. |
| Scale | Geographical scope (local, national, or global) in which we analyze and understand a phenomenon. |
| Possibilism | Theory in geography that humans, not environment, shape culture. |
| Geographic concepts | Mental categories used to organize and analyze the world spatially. |
| Globalization | Processes heightening interactions, increasing interdependence, and deepening relations across country borders. |
| Distance | the measured physical space between places |
| Spatial perspective | Looking at where things occur, why they occur where they do, and how places are interconnected. |
| Mental maps | Maps of an area made from memory or experience by individuals or groups (also known as cognitive maps). |
| Place | Uniqueness of a location (one of the five themes of geography). |
| Expansion Diffusion | The spread of an idea or innovation from its hearth across space without the aid of people moving. |
| Pandemic | An outbreak of a disease that spreads worldwide. |
| Culture | Group of belief systems, norms, and values practiced by a people. |
| Hierarchical Diffusion | Spread of an idea or innovation from one person or place to another person or place based on a hierarchy of connectedness. Specific type of expansion diffusion. |
| Carrying capacity | The idea that land can hold a measurable amount of plant and animal life. |
| Contagious Diffusion | Spread of an idea or innovation from one person or place to another person or place based on proximity. Specific type of expansion diffusion. |
| Reference maps | Maps showing absolute location of places and geographic features. |
| Region | Area of Earth identified as sharing a formal, functional, or perceptual commonality that makes it different from regions around it (one of the five themes of geography). |
| Terra Incognita | Areas on maps that are not well defined because they are off limits or unknown to the map maker. |
| Geographic Information Systems (GIS) | A system of computer hardware and software designed to show, analyze, and represent geographic data (data that have locations). |
| Connectivity | Position of a place or area relative to others in a network. |
| Cartography | The art and science of making maps. |
| Sequent occupance | imprints left on the cultural landscape by a series of successive societies. Each society contributed to the cumulative cultural landscape. |
| Spatial distribution | Physical locations of geographic phenomena, usually shown on a map. |
| Absolute location | Precise location of a place, usually defined by latitude and longitude. |
| Accessibility | Ease of flow between two places. |
| Cultural Ecology | Study of the historical interaction between humans and environment in a place, including ways humans have modified and adapted to environment. |
| Activity spaces | Places within the rounds of daily activity. |
| Remote sensing | A method of collecting data or information through the use of instruments (e.g., satellites) that are physically distant from the area of study. |
| Hearth | Area or place where an idea, innovation, or technology originates. |
| Geography | The spatial study of people, place, space, and environment. |
| Relocation Diffusion | Spread of an idea or innovation from its hearth by the act of people moving and taking the idea or innovation with them. |
| Global Positioning System (GPS) | Satellite-based system for determining the absolute location of places or geographic features. |
| Location theory | Understanding the distribution of cities, industries, services, or consumers with the goal of explaining why places are chosen as sites of production or consumption. The von Thünen model is an example. |
| Political Ecology | An approach to studying human-environment interactions in the context of political, economic, and historical conditions operating at multiple scales. |
| Location | Position on Earth, including both absolute location and relative location (one of the five themes of geography). |
| Cultural landscape | The visible human imprint on the landscape. |
| Stimulus Diffusion | A process of diffusion where two cultural traits blend to create a distinct trait. |
| Physical Geography | One of the two major divisions of geography; the spatial analysis of physical phenomena, including climate, environmental hazards, weather systems, animals, and topography. |
| Relative location | The location of a place or attribute in reference to another place or attribute. |
| Cultural traits | A learned belief, norm, or value passed down through generations in a culture. |
| Thematic maps | A map that tells a story, typically showing the degree of some attribute or the movement of a geographic phenomenon using map symbols. |
| Spatial Interaction | Degree of connectedness or contact among people or places. |
| Diffusion | Spread of an idea, innovation, or technology from its hearth to other people and places. |
| Environmental determinism | Set of theories that use environmental differences to explain everything from intelligence to wealth. |
| Movement | Mobility of people, goods, and services across Earth (one of the five themes of geography). |
| Sense of Place | Infusing a place with meaning as a result of experiences in a place. |
| Epidemic | Widespread, rapid diffusion of disease among a people in a particular location or region at a particular time. |
| Functional Region | Area of land defined as sharing a common purpose in society. |
| Context | The physical and human geographies creating the place, environment, and space in which events occur and people act. |
| Rescale | Changing the geographical scope at which a problem is addressed by engaging decision makers and gatekeepers at another scale. |
| Nodes | Connection point in a network, where goods and ideas flow in, out, and through the network. |
| Fieldwork | Observations researchers make of physical and cultural landscapes with a focus on seeing similarities and differences. |
