Question | Answer |
a physical feature, such as a plain, mountain, hill, valley, or plateau, on the Earth’s surface | landform |
a group of connected mountains | mountain range |
an area at or near the foot of a mountain | piedmont |
the level of the surface of the ocean | sea level |
a broad area of high mostly flat land | plateau |
low, bowl-shaped land with higher ground all around it | basin |
an opening in the Earth, often on a hill or mountain, through which hot lava, gases, ash, and rock may pour out | volcano |
the height of land in relation to sea level | elevation |
A line on a drawing or map that connects all points of equal elevation | contour line |
the part of a body of water flowing in a certain directions | current |
the regular rise and fall of the ocean and of the bodies of water connected to it | tide |
an area of water extending into the land from a larger body of water | inlet |
a long inlet often parallel to the coast | sound |
a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or river | tributary |
land drained by a river system | drainage basin |
a place where the elevation of the land drops sharply, causing rivers to form waterfalls or rapids | fall line |
the kind of weather a place has most often, year after year | climate |
the plant life that grows naturally in a place | natural vegetation |
the driest side of a mountain | rain shadow |
the amount of moisture in the air, measured in percent(%) | humidity |
a long period of time with little or no rain in an area | drought |
dry | arid |
a cold, dry region where trees can not grow | tundra |
an area of flat or rolling land covered mostly by grasses and wildflowers | prairie |
a kind of grassland that has areas with a few scattered trees | savanna |
something found in nature that people can use; examples: wood, oil, and water | natural resource |
to change | modify |
matter added to the soil to make it produce more crops | fertilizer |
the use of canals, ditches, or pipes to move water to dry areas | irrigation |
a resource that is NOT able to be made again quickly by nature or by people; example: oil is the result of millions of years of decomposition of vegetation, it is a process that occurs very slowly so oil is a nonrenewable resource | nonrenewable resource |
a resource that IS able to be made again quickly by nature or by people; example: waste (dirty) water can be cleaned through a water purification system so water is considered a renewable resource | renewable resource |
the wearing down of Earth’s surface, usually by wind or water | erosion |
The way in which most of the land in a place is used (examples: residential, industrial, recreational, or commercial) | land use |
the position of one place in relation to another | relative location |
an area that shares a government and leaders | political region |
an area defined by the kind of work people do ore the products they produce | economic region |
an area in which people share some ways of life | cultural region |
an area based on where people live | population region |
Having to do with a large city | urban |
the area of smaller cities or towns around a large city | suburban |
having to do with a place far away from a city | rural |
a place that connects people, goods, and ideas | crossroads |
a large city and the suburbs that surround it | metropolitan area |
the exact location of a place on Earth, either a postal location, or latitude and longitude coordinates | absolute location |
lines on a map or globe that run east and west; also called parallels | lines of latitude |
a line of latitude; called parallel because they are always the same distance from each other | parallel |
lines on a map or globe that run north and south, also called meridians | lines of longitude |
a line of longitude that runs from the North Pole to the South Pole | meridian |
the meridian marked 0 degrees that runs north and south through Greenwich, England | prime meridian |