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Chapter 1 - Basic Concepts - vocab

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Term
Definition
Abiotic   Composed of nonliving or inorganic matter.  
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Acculturation   The process of changes in culture that result from the meeting of two groups, each of which retains distinct culture features.  
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Assimilation   The process by which a group’s cultural features are altered to resemble those of another more dominant group.  
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Atmosphere   The thin layer of gases surrounding Earth.  
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Behavioral geography   The study of the psychological basis for individual human actions in space.  
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Biosphere   All living organisms on Earth, includ- ing plants and animals, as well as microorganisms.  
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Biotic   Composed of living organisms.  
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Cartography   The science of making maps.  
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Citizen Science   Scientific research by amateur scientists.  
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Climate   The long-term average weather con- dition at aparticular location.  
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Concentration   The spread of something over a given area.  
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Connection   The relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.  
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Conservation   The sustainable management of a natural resource.  
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Contagious diffusion   The rapid, wide- spread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.  
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Cultural ecology   A geographic approach that emphasizes human–environment relation- ships.  
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Cultural landscape   An approach to geog- raphy that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area.  
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Culture   The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group’s distinct tradition.  
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Density   The frequency with which some- thing exists within a given unit of area.  
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Diffusion   The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time.  
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Distance decay   The diminished importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin.  
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Distribution   The arrangement of something across Earth’s surface.  
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Ecology   The scientific study of ecosystems.  
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Ecosystem   A group of living organisms and the abiotic spheres with which they interact.  
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Environmental determinism   19 & 20 century approach to the study of geography which argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences.Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.  
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Expansion diffusion   The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in an additive process.  
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Formal region (or uniform region)   An area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics.  
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Functional region (or nodal region)   An area organized around a node or focal point.  
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Geographic information science (GIScience)   The development and analysis of data about Earth acquired through satellite and other electronic information technologies.  
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Geographic information system (GIS)   A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data.  
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Geotagging   Identification and storage of a piece of information by its precise latitude and longitude coordinates.  
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Global Positioning System (GPS)   A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers.  
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Globalization   Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.  
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Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)   The time in the zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 0° longitude.  
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Hearth   The region from which innovative ideas originate.  
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Hierarchical diffusion   The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places.  
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Humanistic geography   The study of different ways that individuals form ideas about place and give those places symbolic meanings.  
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Hydrosphere   All of the water on and near Earth’s surface.  
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International Date Line   An arc that for the most part follows 180 ° longitude, When the International Date Line is crossed heading east (toward America), the clock moves back 24 hours, or one entire day. When it is crossed heading west (Asia), the calendar moves ahead one day.  
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Latitude   The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator (0°).  
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Lithosphere   Earth’s crust and a portion of upper mantle directly below the crust.  
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Location   The position of anything on Earth’s surface.  
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Longitude   The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian (0°).  
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Map   A two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth’s surface or a portion of it.  
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Map scale   The relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth’s surface.  
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Mashup   A map that overlays data from one source on top of a map provided by a mapping service.  
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Mental map   A representation of a portion of Earth’s surface based on what an individual knows about a place that contains personal im- pressions of what is in the place and where the place is located.  
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Meridian   An arc drawn on a map between the North and South poles.  
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Network   A chain of communication that connects places.  
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Nonrenewable resource   Something produced in nature more slowly than it is consumed by humans.  
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Parallel   A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians.  
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Participatory GIS (PGIS)   Community-based mapping, representing local knowledge and information.  
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Pattern   The geometric or regular arrangement of something in a particular area  
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Place   A specific point on Earth, distinguished by a particular characteristic.  
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Polder   Land that the Dutch have created by draining water from an area.  
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Possibilism   The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives.  
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Poststructuralist geography   The study of space as the product of ideologies or value systems of ruling elites.  
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Preservation   The maintenance of resources in their present condition, with as little human impact as possible.  
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Prime meridian   The meridian, designated as 0° longitude, that passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.  
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Projection   A system used to transfer locations from Earth’s surface to a flat map.  
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Region   An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features.  
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Relocation diffusion   The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.  
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Remote sensing   The acquisition of data about Earth’s surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or from other long-distance methods.  
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Renewable resource   Something produced in nature more rapidly than it is consumed by humans.  
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Resource   A substance in the environment that is useful to people, is economically and technologically feasible to access, and is socially acceptable to use.  
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Scale   Generally, the relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole.  
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Site   The physical character of a place.  
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Situation   The location of a place relative to another place.  
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Space   The physical gap or interval between two objects.  
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Space–time compression   The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place as a result of improved communications and transportation systems.  
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Spatial association   The relationship be- tween the distribution of one feature and the distribution of another feature.  
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Stimulus diffusion   The spread of an underlying principle even though a specific characteristic is rejected.  
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Sustainability   The use of Earth’s renewable and nonrenewable natural resources in ways that do not constrain resource use in the future.  
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Syncretism   The combining of elements of two groups into a new cultural feature.  
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Toponym   The name given to a portion of Earth’s surface.  
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Transnational corporation   A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located.  
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Uneven development   The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy.  
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Vernacular region (or perceptual region)   An area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity.  
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Volunteered geographic information (VGI)   Creation and dissemination of geographic data contributed voluntarily and for free by individuals.  
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