climate
The long-term average weather condition at a particular location
Concentration
The spread of something over a given area.
connection
Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.
conservation
The sustainable management of a natural resource
Contagious Diffusion
The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.
Cultural Ecology
Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.
cultural landscape
An approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area.
Acculturation
The process of changes in culture that result from the meeting of two groups, each of which retains distinct culture features.
Assimilation
The process by which a group's cultural features are altered to resemble those of another more dominant group.
Geographic Information System (GIS)
A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data.
Culture
The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group's distinct tradition.
Density
The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area
Diffusion
The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time
Distance Decay
the diminished importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance of its origin
Distribution
The arrangement of something across Earth's surface.
environmental determinism
A nineteenth- and early twentieth-century approach to the study of geography that 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.
Expansion Diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in additive process.
Functional or Nodal Region
an area organized around a node or focal point
Formal or Uniform Region
An area within which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics.
Cartography
The science of making maps
Global Positioning System (GPS)
A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers.
Globalization
Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
the time in the zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 0 degrees longitude
Hearth
The region from which innovative ideas originate
Hierarchical Diffusion
the spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places
International Date Line
An arc that for the most part follows 180° longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas. When you cross the International Date Line heading east (toward America), the clock moves back 24 hours, or one entire day. When you go west (toward Asia), the calendar moves ahead one day.
Latitude
The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator.
location
The position of anything on Earth's surface.
Longitude
the numbering system used to indicate the location of a meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian (0 degrees)
map
A two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth's surface or a portion of it.
map scale
The relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface.
Mashup
a map that overlays data from one source on top of a map provided by a mapping service
Mental Map
A representation of a portion of Earth's surface based on what an individual knows about a place, containing personal impressions of what is in a place and where places are located.
Meridian
An arc drawn on a map between the North and South poles.
nonrenewable resource
Something produced in nature more slowly than it is consumed by humans
parallel
A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians.
pattern
The geometric or regular arrangement of something in a particular area.
place
A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular character.
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.
preservation
The maintenance of resources in their present condition, with as little human impact as possible
Prime Meridian
The meridian, designated at 0° longitude, which passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.
Projection
The system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a map.
region
An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features.
relocation diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.
remote sensing
The acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods.
renewable resource
Something produced in nature more rapidly than it is consumed by humans
resource
A substance in the environment that is useful to people, is economically and technologically feasible to access, and is socially acceptable to use.
scale (of analysis)
Generally, the relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole.
site
The physical character of a place
situation
the location of a place relative to another place