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Ch.9
Vocabulary
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Conquistador | Name for the Spanish explorers who claimed land in the Americas for Spain. |
Cultural Convergence | Thea contact and interaction of one culture with another. |
Caudillo | A Latin American military dictator. |
Pampas | A grasslands region in Argentina and Ugugray. |
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 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 per hour. |
El Nino | A warm ocean current off South America's nothwestern 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 desisions about production, price, and other economic factors are determined bu 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 suplus and exchange of goods; also knon 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 hold formed when limestone is dissolved, causeing 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 colectively 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 varriers among the United States, Canada, and Mexico |
Maquiladora | A factory in Mexico, along the United States border, that aassembles goods for export |