Term | Definition |
Conquistador | Name for Spanish explorers who claimed land in the Americas for Spain. |
Cultural Convergence | The contact and interaction of one culture with another. |
Caudillo | A Latin American military dictator. |
Pampas | A grassland region in Argentina and Uruguay. |
Cay | A small, low island or coral reef. |
Coral | The rocklike skeletons of tiny sea animals. |
Tropical Storm | A storm with winds of at least 39 miles (63 km) per hour. |
Hurricane | A destructive tropical storm that forms over the Atlantic Ocean, usually in late summer and early fall, with winds of at least 74 miles (119km) 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. |
Mestizo | A person of mixed European and Native American heritage. |
Mulatto | 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 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 where limestone is dissolved, causing the land above to collapse. |
Hacienda | A large Spanish-owned estate in the Americas, often run as a farm or a 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 or 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. |