Rubenstein Chapter 1
Terms
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- Longitude
- The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian (0°).
- Concentric zone model
- A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are spatially arranged in a series of rings.
- Meridian
- An arc drawn on a map between the North and South poles.
- Greenwich Mean Time
- The time in that time zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 0° longitude.
- Latitude
- The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator (0°).
- Region
- An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features.
- Place
- A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular character.
- 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.
- Site
- The physical character of a place
- Section
- A square normally 1 mile on a side. The Land Ordinance of 1785 divided townships in the United States into 36 sections.
- Agricultural density
- The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture.
- Distribution
- The arrangement of something across Earth's surface.
- Parallel
- A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians.
- Arithmetic density
- The total number of people divided by the total land area.
- Diffusion
- The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time.
- Land Ordinance of 1785
- A law that divided much of the United States into a system of townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers.
- Cultural landscape
- Fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group.
- Map
- A two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth's surface or a portion of it.
- Culture
- The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group of people's distinct tradition.
- 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.
- 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.
- Resource
- A substance in the environment that is useful to people, is economically and technologically feasible to access, and is socially acceptable to use.
- Cartography
- The science of making maps.
- Transnational corporation
- A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located.
- Concentration
- The spread of something over a given area.
- Projection
- The system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map.
- Space
- The physical gap or interval between two objects.
- Location
- The position of anything on Earth's surface.
- Base line
- An east-west line designated under the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the surveying and numbering of townships in the United States.
- Vernacular region (or perceptual region)
- An area that people believe to exist as part of their cultural identity.
- Global Positioning System (GPS)
- A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers.
- International Date Line
- An arc that for the most part follows 180° longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas. When you cross the International Date Line heading east (toward America), the clock moves back 24 hours, or one entire day. When you go west (toward Asia), the calendar moves ahead one day.
- Contagious diffusion
- The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.
- Hearth
- The region from which innovative ideas originate.
- Situation
- The location of a place relative to other places. Situation factors Location factors related to the transportation of materials into and from a factory.
- 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.
- Regional (or cultural landscape) studies
- An approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area.
- Toponym
- The name given to a portion of Earth's' surface.
- Uneven development
- The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy.
- Distance decay
- The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin.
- Physiological density
- The number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture.
- Stimulus diffusion
- The spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected.
- Cultural ecology
- Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.
- Formal region (or uniform or homogeneous region)
- An area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics.
- Township
- A square normally 6 miles on a side. The Land Ordinance of 1785 divided much of the United States into a series of townships.
- Density
- The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area.
- Functional (or nodal) region
- An area organized around a node or focal point.
- Hierarchical religion
- A religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control.
- Principal meridian
- A north-south line designated in the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the surveying and numbering of townships in the United States.
- Expansion diffusion
- The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process.
- Relocation diffusion
- The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.
- Globalization
- Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.
- Connections
- Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.
- GIS
- A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data.
- Remote sensing
- The acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods.
- Polder
- Land created by the Dutch by draining water from an area.
- Environmental determinism
- A nineteenth- and early twentieth century approach to the study of geography that 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.
- Pattern
- The geometric or regular arrangement of something in a study area.