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Ch. 9 & 10 Vocab.
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Conquistadors. | Name for the Spanish explorers who claimed land in the Americas for Spain. |
Cultural convergence. | The contact and interaction of one culture with another. |
Caudillos. | A Latin America military dictator. |
Pampas. | A grasslands region in Argentina and Uruguay. |
Coral. | The rocklike skeletons of tiny sea animals. |
Tropical storms. | A storm with winds of at least 39 miles (63 km) per hour. |
Hurricanes. | A destructive tropical storm that forms over the Atlantic Ocean, usually in late summer and early fall, with winds of at least 74 miles (119 km) per hour. |
El Nino. | A warm ocean current off South America's northwestern coast that influences global weather patterns. |
Canopy. | The uppermost layer of a forest where tree branches meet. |
Mestizos. | A person of mixed European and Native American heritage. |
Mulattoes. | A person of mixed African and European ancestry. |
Market economy. | An economic system in which decisions about production, price, and other economic factors are determined by the law of supply and demand. |
GDP per capita. | The total value of goods and services produced within a country in a year, divided by the country's total population. |
Command economy. | An economic system that is controlled by a single central government. |
Traditional economy. | An economic system in which families produce goods and services for their own use, with little surplus and exchange of goods; also known as a subsistence economy. |
Plateau. | An area of high flat land. |
Peninsula. | A strip of land that juts out into an ocean. |
Irrigation. | The watering of farmland with water drawn from reservoirs or rivers. |
Sinkhole. | A hole formed when limestone is dissolved, causing the land above to collapse. |
Hacienda. | A large Spanish-owned estate in the Americas, often run as a farm or cattle ranch. |
Land redistribution. | A policy by which land is taken from those who own large amounts and redistributed to those who have little or none. |
Ejido. | Farmland owned collectively by members of a rural community. |
Subsistence farming. | Farming that provides only enough for the needs of a family or a village. |
Latifundio. | A large commercial farm owned by a private individual or a farming company. |
Cash crop. | A farm crop grown for sale and profit. |
Migrant worker. | A worker who travels from place to place, working where extra help is needed to cultivate or harvest crops. |
NAFTA. | North American Free Trade Agreement, which phased out trade barriers among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. |
Maquiladora. | A factory in Mexico, along the United States border, that assembles goods for export. |
Cays. | A small, low island or coral reef. |