| Question |
Answer |
| cartography | the science of making maps |
| 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 emphasizes human-environment relationships |
| culture | the body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together consitute a group of people's distinct tradition |
| density | the frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area |
| diffusion | the process or spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time |
| distance-decay | the diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin |
| distribution | the arrangement of something across earth's surface |
| environmental | relating to the natural environment, it's protection and conservation |
| determinism | the theory that whatever happens (including human acts) is caused by something else |
| equator | the imaginary line around the Earth forming the great circle that is equidistant from the north and south poles |
| expansion diffusion | the spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process |
| formal region | an area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics |
| functional (or nodal) region | an area organized around a node or focal point |
| Geographic Information System (GIS) | a computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data |
| Global Positioning System (GPS) | a system that determines the precise position of something on earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers |
| hiearchical diffusion | the spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places |
| hearth | the region from which innovative ideas originate |
| International Date Line | an arc that for the most part follows 180 degrees longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas. When you cross the International Date Line heading east (towards America), the clock moves back 24 hours, or one entire day. |
| 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 degrees) |
| longitude | the numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distances east and west of the prime meridian (0 degrees) |
| Mercator projection | a type of map in which the true compass directions are kept intact (lines of latitude and longitude intersect at right angles) but areas are distorted |
| 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, that passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England |
| projection | the system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map |
| 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 the Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods |
| Robinson projection | representation that reflects the spherical appearance of Earth, but like the Mercator projection, distortions occur |
| 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 |
| site | the physical character of a place |
| situation | the location of a place relative to other places |
| space-time compression | the reduction in time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation systems |
| spatial perspective | geographer's point of view, used to determine where something is and why it is there |
| stimulus diffusion | the spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected |
| time zones | the world is divided into 24 times zones spaced at intervals of 15 degrees longitude |
| 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 globalizatoin of the economy |
| vernacular region | (perceptual region) an area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity |
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