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ch. 3&4 vocabulary
world geography
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| culture | the way of life that distinguishes a people. |
| population density | the average number of people living in a given area. |
| birthrate | the number of lives births each year per 1,000 people. |
| immigrant | a person who moves into the country. |
| emigrant | a person who leaves a country to live elsewhere. |
| urbanization | the growth of city populations. |
| rural | of, or characteristic of, the countryside. |
| culture hearth | a place in which important ideas begin and thereafter spread to surrounding cultures. |
| cultural convergence | the contact and interaction of one culture with another. |
| diffusion | the process by which a cultural element is transmitted from one group or individual to another. |
| cultural divergence | the restriction of a culture from outside influences. |
| sovereignty | a country's freedom and power to decide on policies and actions. |
| unitary system | a system of government in which one central government holds most of the political power. |
| federation | a government structure in which some powers are given to the national government and other powers are reserved for more local governments. |
| confederation | a system of government in which individual political units keep their sovereignty but give limited power to central government. |
| authoritarian | descriptive of a system of government in which the leaders hold all political power. |
| dictatorship | a system of government in which absolute power is held by a small group or one person. |
| totalitarianism | a system of government in which a central authority controls all aspects of society. |
| monarchy | a system of authoritarian government headed by a monarch a king, queen, shah, or sultan- whose position is usually inherited. |
| democracy | a system of government in which the people are invested with the power to choose their leaders and determine government policy. |
| traditional economy | an economic system in which families produce goods and services for their own use with little surplus and exchange of good; also known as a subsistence economy. |
| market economy | an economic system in which decisions about production, price, and other economic factors are determined by the law of supply and demand. |
| command economy | an economic system that is controlled by a single central government. |
| natural resources | a material in the natural environment that people value and use to satisfy their needs. |
| renewable resources | |
| nonrenewable resources | |
| fossil fuel | |
| nuclear energy | |
| water power | |
| geothermal energy | |
| solar energy | |
| primary economic activity | |
| subsistence farming | |
| commercial farming | |
| secondary economic activiy | |
| cottage industry | |
| commercial industry | |
| tertiary economic activity | |
| quaternary economic activity | |
| export | |
| import |