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ch 4 geo
vocab
Term | Definition |
---|---|
transition zone | An area of spatial change where the peripheries of two adjacent realms or regions join |
geographic information system (GIS) | A form of spatial analysis that integrates computer hardware, mapping software, and such specialized tools as models and algorithms |
digital elevation model | A representation of a unit of terrain obtained from remote sensing imagery. |
land hemisphere | The half of the globe containing the greatest amount of land surface, centered on western Europe. |
city-state | An independent political entity consisting of a single city with (and sometimes without) an immediate hinterland. |
local functional specialization | A hallmark of Europe’s economic geography that later spread to many other parts of the world, whereby particular people in particular places concentrate on the production of particular goods and services. |
industrial revolution | The term applied to the social and economic changes in agriculture, commerce, and especially manufacturing and urbanization that resulted from technological innovations and greater specialization in late-eighteenth-century Europe. |
sovereighnty | Controlling power and influence over a territory, especially by the government of an autonomous state over the people it rules. |
nation-state | A country whose population possesses a substantial degree of cultural homogeneity and unity |
nation | Legally a term encompassing all the citizens of a state, it also has other connotations. |
indo-european language family | The major world language family that dominates the European geographic realm |
complemantarity | Exists when two regions, through an exchange of raw materials and/or finished products, can specifically satisfy each other’s demands. |
transferability | The capacity to move a good from one place to another at a bearable cost; the ease with which a commodity may be transported. |
central business district (СBD) | The downtown heart of a central city; marked by high land values, a concentration of business and commerce, and the clustering of the tallest buildings. |
centrifugal forces | A term employed to designate forces that tend to divide a country—such as internal religious, linguistic, ethnic, or ideological differences. |
centripetal forces | Forces that unite and bind a country together—such as a strong national culture, shared ideological objectives, and a common faith. |
supranationalism | A venture involving three or more states—political, economic, and/or cultural cooperation to promote shared objectives. |
euro zone | The 19 countries (as of mid-2016) whose official currency is the euro |
schengen area | The territory constituted by most of Europe’s countries within which people are free to cross international boundaries without formal border checks. |
four motors of europe | Rhône-Alpes (France), Baden-Württemberg (Germany), Catalonia (Spain), and Lombardy (Italy) |
devolution | The process whereby regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government. |
asylum | Legally protected residency status; usually granted by a host country to immigrants fleeing political oppression in their former homeland. |
microstate | A sovereign state that contains a minuscule land area and population. They do not have the attributes of “complete” states, but are on the map as tiny yet independent entities nonetheless. |
urban system | A hierarchical network or grouping of urban areas within a finite geographic area, such as a country. |
primate city | 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. |
site | The internal locational attributes of an urban center, including its local spatial organization and physical setting. |
situation | The external locational attributes of an urban center; its relative location or regional position with reference to other non-local places. |
estuary | The widening mouth of a river as it reaches the sea; land subsidence or a rise in sea level has overcome the tendency to form a delta. |
conurbation | General term used to identify a large multimetropolitan complex formed by the coalescence of two or more major urban areas |
landlocked location | An interior state wholly surrounded by land. |
world-city | A large city with particularly significant international (economic) linkages that also has a high ranking in the global urban system |
metropolis | Urban agglomeration consisting of a (central) city and its suburban ring. See also urban (metropolitan) area. |
break-of-bulk | A location along a transport route where goods must be transferred from one carrier to another |
entrepôt | A place, usually a port city, where goods are imported, stored, and transshipped; a break-of-bulk point. |
shatter belt | Region caught between stronger, colliding external cultural-political forces, under persistent stress, and often fragmented by aggressive rivals. Eastern Europe is a classic example. |
balkanizsation | The fragmentation of a region into smaller, often hostile political units. Named after the historically contentious Balkan Peninsula of southeastern Europe. |
irredentism | A policy of cultural extension and potential political expansion by a state aimed at a community of its nationals living in a neighboring state. |
exclave | A bounded (non-island) piece of territory that is part of a particular state but lies separated from it by the territory of another state. |