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north america
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Borderline | General term for a linear zone that parallels a political boundary. The most dynamic of these areas, such as those lining the U.S.-Mexico border, are marked by significant cultural and economic interaction across the boundary that separates them. |
| Transition zone | An area of spatial change where the peripheries of two adjacent realms or regions join; marked by a gradual shift (rather than a sharp break) in the characteristics that distinguish these neighboring geographic entities from one another. |
| Physiographic region | A region within which there prevails substantial natural-landscape homogeneity, expressed by a certain degree of uniformity in surface relief, climate, vegetation, and soils. |
| Continentality | The variation of the continental effect on air temperatures in the interior portions of the world’s landmasses. |
| Rain shadow effect | The relative dryness in areas downwind of mountain ranges resulting from orographic precipitation, wherein moist air masses are forced to deposit most of their water content as they cross the highlands. |
| Federation | A country adhering to a political framework where a central government represents the various subnational entities within a nation-state where they have common interests foreign affairs, identities and to have their own laws. |
| Aquifer | An underground reservoir of water contained within a porous, water-bearing rock layer. |
| Fossil fuel | The energy resources of coal, natural gas, and petroleum (oil), so named collectively because they were formed by the geologic compression and transformation of tiny plant and animal organisms. |
| Urban system | A hierarchical network or grouping of urban areas within a finite geographic area, such as a country. |
| American Manufacturing belt | North America’s near-rectangular core area, whose corners are Boston, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Baltimore. |
| Distribution center | A centralized focus of economic activity specializing in the distribution of goods, situated as a major hub on its regional transportation network. |
| Intermodal connections | Facilities and activities related to the transfer of goods in transit from one transportation mode to another |
| Outer city | The non-central-city portion of the American metropolis; no longer “sub” to the “urb,” this outer ring was transformed into a full-fledged city during the late twentieth century. |
| Deindustrialization | companies relocate manufacturing jobs to other regions or countries with cheaper labor, leaving the newly-deindustrialized region to convert to a service economy. |
| Central Businesses district | 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. |
| Information economy | The new, increasingly dominant, postindustrial economy that is maturing in the most highly advanced countries of North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. |
| Gentrification | The upgrading of an older residential area through private reinvestment, usually in the downtown area of a central city. |
| Neighborhood effect | The impact of one’s neighborhood on an individual’s outlook, aspirations, socialization, and life chances. |
| Residential geography | The spatial distribution of a residential population. |
| Sunbelt | Popular name given which is anchored by the mega-States of California, Texas, and Florida. |
| Migrations | A change in residence intended to be permanent. |
| Electoral geography | The spatial distribution of political preferences as expressed in voting behavior for political parties and/or candidates. |
| Melting pot | Traditional characterization of American society as a blend of numerous immigrant ethnic groups that over time were assimilated into a single societal mainstream. |
| First Nations | Name given Canada’s indigenous peoples of American descent, whose U.S. counterparts are called Native Americans. |
| World city | A large city with particularly significant international (economic) linkages that also has a high ranking in the global urban system. |
| Technopoles | A planned techno-industrial complex (such as California’s Silicon Valley) that innovates, promotes, and manufactures the products of the postindustrial information economy. |
| Pacific rim | A far-flung group of countries and components of countries they face the Pacific Ocean; they exhibit relatively high levels of economic development, industrialization, and urbanization; their imports and exports mainly move across Pacific waters. |
| Tar sands | The main source of oil from non-liquid petroleum reserves. The oil is mixed with sand and requires massive open-pit mining as well as a costly, complicated process to extract it. |
| Boreal forest | The subarctic, mostly coniferous snowforest that blankets Canada south of the tundra that lines the Arctic shore; known as the taiga in Russia. |
| GPS | The orbiting-satellite-based navigation system that provides locational and time information, anywhere on or near the Earth’s surface where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. |
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