| Term | Definition |
| Monsoon | Refers to the seasonal reversal of wind and moisture flows in certain parts of the subtropics and lower-middle latitudes. The dry monsoon occurs during the cool season when dry offshore winds prevail. |
| Sex ratio | A demographic indicator showing the ratio of males to females in a given population. |
| China-Pakistan Economic Corridor | The 2000-kilometer (1250-mi), northeast-southwest development axis stretching between the westernmost Chinese city of Kashgar and Pakistan’s new Indian Ocean port of Gwadar. A major future trade route that aligns with China’s New Silk Road. |
| Micro-credits | Small loans extended to poverty-stricken borrowers who would not otherwise qualify for them. The aim is to help combat poverty, encourage entrepreneurship, and to empower poor communities—especially their women. |
| Transition Zone | An area of spatial change where the peripheries of two adjacent realms or regions join; marked by a gradual shift (rather than a sharp break) in the characteristics that distinguish these neighboring geographic entities from one another. |
| Demographic transition | Multi-stage model, based on western Europe’s experience, of changes in population growth exhibited by countries undergoing industrialization. |
| Caste system | The strict social stratification and residential segregation of people—specifically in India’s Hindu society—on the basis of ancestry and occupation. |
| Neoliberalism | A national or regional development strategy based on the privatization of state-run companies, lowering of international trade tariffs, reduction of government subsidies, cutting of corporate taxes, and overall deregulation of business activity. |
| Fertility rate | More precisely the Total Fertility Rate, it is the average number of children born to women of childbearing age in a given population. |
| Forward Capital | Capital city positioned in actually or potentially contested territory, usually near an international border; it confirms the state’s determination to maintain its presence in the area of contention. |
| Mega cities | Informal term referring to the world’s most heavily populated cities; in this book, the term refers to a metropolis containing a population of greater than 10 million. |
| Double delta | South Asia’s combined delta formed by the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. All of Bangladesh lies on this enormous deltaic plain, which also encompasses surrounding parts of eastern India. |
| Physiological density | The number of people per unit area of arable land. |
| Extreme weather events | Unprecedented, record-breaking departures from the longer-term weather patterns of a certain area. In India, such events have tripled since 1980 in the form of severe heat waves, droughts, and non-monsoonal rainstorms that trigger massive flooding. |
| Demographic burden | The proportion of a national population that is either too old or too young to be productive and that must be cared for by the productive population. |
| Buffer state | A country or set of countries separating ideological or political adversaries. In southern Asia, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bhutan were parts of a buffer zone set up between British and Russian |
| Non-government organization | A legitimate organization that operates independently from any form of government and does not function as a for-profit business. Mostly seeks to improve social conditions, but is not affiliated with political organizations. |
| Indo-European language family | The major world language family that dominates the European geographic realm. This language family is also the most widely dispersed globally (Fig. G-8), and about half of humankind speaks one of its languages. |
| Urban primacy | Refers to a country’s largest city—ranking atop its urban hierarchy—most expressive of the national culture and usually (but not in every case) the capital city as well. |
| Communal tension | Persistent stress among a country’s sociocultural groups that can often erupt into communal violence, particularly in India. |
| Taliban | The term means “students” or “seekers of religion.” Specifically, refers to the Islamist militia group that emerged from madrassas in Pakistan and ruled neighboring Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 |
| Rising sea level | One of the expected major impacts of global climate change on the world ocean resulting from the large-scale melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice. Low-lying coastal settlements and human activities are at greatest risk of inundation. |
| Population geography | The field of geography that focuses on the spatial aspects of demography and the influences of demographic change on particular countries and regions. |
| Drone Warfare | The use of remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as delivery systems to conduct military attacks. Tactical advantages include highly precise targeting, long flight times without refueling |
| Informal sector | Dominated by unlicensed sellers of homemade goods and services, the primitive form of capitalism found in many developing countries that takes place beyond the control of government. The complement to a country’s formal sector. |
| Dravidian | The language family, indigenous to the South Asian realm, that dominates southern India today; as opposed to the Indo-European languages, whose tongues dominate northern India. |
| Population density | The number of people per unit area. Also see arithmetic density and physiologic density measures. |
| Hindutva | “Hinduness” as expressed through Hindu nationalism, Hindu heritage, and/or Hindu patriotism. |
| Partition | The subdivision of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan at the end of colonial rule on August 15, 1947. |
| al-Qaeda | The terrorist organization that evolved into an expanding global network under the directorship of Usama bin Laden between the mid-1990s and his elimination by the U.S. in 2011. |
| Population pyramid | Graphic representation or profile of a national population according to age and gender. Such a diagram of age-sex structure typically displays the percentage of each age group (commonly in five-year increments) as a horizontal bar |
