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Ch. 9&10 Vocab
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Conquistador | Name for the Spanish explorers who claimed land in the Americas for spain |
| cultural convergence | The contact and interaction of one culture with another |
| caudillos | A Latin american military dictator |
| pampas | A grassland region in Argentina and Uruguay |
| cays | A small low island or coral reef |
| coral | The rock-like skeletons of tiny sea animals |
| tropical storms | A storm with winds of at least 39 miles per hour |
| hurricanes | 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 Americas northwestern coast that influences global weather patterns. |
| Canopy | the upper most layer of a forest where tree branches meet |
| mestizos | a person mixed European and Native American heritage. |
| mulattoes | a peson who is mixed with of |
| market economy | An economic system in which decisions about production, price, and other economic factors are determined by 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 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 surplus and exchange of goods; also known as a substances economy |
| plateau | An area of high land, flat land |
| peninsula | a strip of land that juts out into an ocean |
| irrigation | The watering of farmland with water drawn from reservois |
| sinkhole | A hole formed when limestone is dissolved causing 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 own |
| ejido | Farmland owned collectively by members of a rural community |
| subsistence farming | Farming that provides only enough for the needs of a family or village |
| latifundio | A large commercial farm owned by a private individual or a farming company |
| cash crop | 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 america free trade agreement, which phased out trade barriers among the United states, Canada, and Mexico |
| maquiladora | A factory in mexico along the united states border, that assembles goods for exports |