Your FREE AP Human Geography Flashcards 2026 – 200+ Cards

The weakening of an interaction or phenomenon as distance from its origin increases.

A thematic map that shows data by shading or color within defined areas.

A place's exact position using a coordinate system such as latitude and longitude. It never changes.

Where a place is in relation to other places (e.g., 'an hour north of the capital'). It can change.

The physical character of a place: terrain, soil, climate, vegetation, water.

A place's location relative to other places and routes — its connections.

The physical and human characteristics that make a location unique.

The name given to a place, which can reveal its history or culture.

The emotional meaning and attachment people develop toward a location.

A region whose area shares one or more measurable, uniform traits (language, climate). Also called uniform.

A region organized around a focal point or node, such as a city's commuting zone. Also called nodal.

A region defined by people's beliefs about an area ('the South'), with fuzzy borders. Also called vernacular.

The level — global, regional, national, or local — at which a phenomenon is examined; it changes the pattern seen.

The ratio of distance on a map to distance on the ground (large scale = small area, much detail).

A map that shows the locations of features — political, physical, or road maps.

A map that shows a pattern or distribution of data across space.

A map using lines that connect points of equal value, like elevation contours.

A thematic map using one dot per count of a phenomenon to show density.

A map where symbol size is scaled to the value at each location.

A map that distorts the size of areas to represent a data value rather than land area.

A projection that preserves direction but greatly exaggerates the size of high-latitude land.

A projection that preserves area (relative size) but distorts the shape of land.

A method of representing the curved Earth on a flat surface; every projection distorts something.

A model: interaction between two places increases with their size and decreases with distance.

The way faster transport and communication shrink the friction of distance.

The idea that distance requires effort, time, and cost, which limits interaction.

A computer system that captures, stores, analyzes, and displays layered geographic data.

Collecting data about Earth's surface from satellites or aircraft without physical contact.

A condition that drives people away from a place (war, famine, unemployment, persecution).

A condition that attracts people to a new place (jobs, safety, family, freedom).

The total number of people divided by the total land area.

The number of people per unit of arable (farmable) land.

The number of farmers per unit of arable land.

The maximum population an environment can sustain with available resources.

The number of live births per 1,000 people in a population in a year.

The number of deaths per 1,000 people in a population in a year.

The average number of children a woman would have in her lifetime; replacement is about 2.1.

The crude birth rate minus the crude death rate, as a percentage; it excludes migration.

The years for a population to double, roughly 70 divided by the RNI percentage.

Deaths of children under age 1 per 1,000 live births in a year; a key development indicator.

A model of how birth and death rates change across four to five stages as a country develops.

High birth rate and high death rate; population is low and stable (pre-industrial).

Birth rate stays high but death rate falls; population grows rapidly.

Birth rate falls while death rate stays low; population growth slows.

Low birth rate and low death rate; population is high and stable.

Birth rate falls below death rate; population shrinks and ages (Japan, Germany, Italy).

The change in the leading causes of death as a country moves through the DTM stages.

An age-sex graph of a population; a wide base means rapid growth, a narrow base slow growth.

The ratio of dependents (under 15 and over 64) to the working-age population.

Continued population growth after fertility falls, because a large young cohort still has children.

Malthus's idea that population grows faster than food supply, leading to crisis.

A modern view warning that population growth strains resources beyond just food.

A government policy that encourages higher birth rates (incentives for children).

A government policy that discourages births, like China's former one-child policy.

A permanent move to a new location, crossing an administrative boundary.

Migration out of a place (leaving the origin).

Migration into a place (arriving at the destination).

Immigration minus emigration for a place over a period.

The visible imprint of human activity and culture on the land.

A common language adopted to enable communication among speakers of different tongues.

The shared beliefs, practices, language, and traits of a group, passed across generations.

A single attribute of a culture, such as a food, custom, or tool.

The area where a cultural trait or innovation originates and from which it diffuses.

The spread of a cultural trait, idea, or innovation from its hearth to other areas.

The spread of a trait outward from its hearth while it remains strong at the source.

The spread of a trait carried by migrating people, often weakening at the hearth.

Expansion diffusion that spreads nearly uniformly outward, person to person, like a disease.

Expansion diffusion that spreads first between important people or large places, then down.

Diffusion in which an underlying idea spreads even when the original form is rejected.

Culture of small, often rural, homogeneous groups; slow to change and place-rooted.

Culture of large, heterogeneous societies; fast-changing, media-spread, tending toward uniformity.

The physical objects a culture makes and uses — tools, buildings, art, clothing.

The intangible parts of culture — beliefs, values, language, customs.

Judging a culture by its own standards rather than those of another culture.

Judging another culture by the standards of one's own, often as superior.

Adopting some traits of a host culture while keeping much of one's own.

The process by which a group largely loses its culture and adopts that of the host society.

The blending of two or more cultural or religious traditions into a new combined form.

A group of languages with a shared ancestral origin (Indo-European).

A regional variety of a language with distinct vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation.

A simplified language that develops to enable trade between groups; has no native speakers.

A pidgin that has gained native speakers and become a full language.

A religion that seeks converts among all people (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism).

A religion tied to a particular people and place (Hinduism, Judaism).

The layering of cultural imprints left by successive societies in a place.

Adopting elements of another culture, often without understanding or respect.

A state whose borders closely match the territory of one dominant nation (e.g., Japan, Iceland).

A state's recognized right to govern itself and its territory without outside interference.

A politically organized territory with defined borders, a permanent population, and a sovereign government.

A group of people who share a common culture, language, history, and identity.

A state that contains two or more nations or ethnic groups.

A nation whose people stretch across the borders of more than one state.

A nation that has no state of its own (the Kurds, the Palestinians).

A part of a state granted a degree of self-government.

The attempt to control people and resources by claiming and defending a territory.

A line that marks the limit of a state's territory.

A boundary that follows straight lines of latitude or longitude.

A boundary that follows a natural feature — river, mountain, or coastline.

A boundary drawn before an area was heavily settled.

A boundary drawn to match cultural divisions that already exist.

A boundary forced onto an area, ignoring existing cultures (colonial Africa).

A former boundary that no longer functions but still marks the landscape.

A state whose distance from center to any boundary is roughly equal; efficient to govern.

A long, narrow state, which can be hard to govern and connect (Chile).

A state in several separated pieces (Indonesia).

A state that completely surrounds another state (South Africa around Lesotho).

A compact state with a large projecting extension or panhandle.

A state with no direct access to an ocean, limiting trade.

A state where power is concentrated in a central government.

A state where power is divided between a central government and regional units.

The transfer of political power from a central government to regional or local governments.

A force that unifies a state, such as a shared identity or strong institutions.

A force that divides a state, such as ethnic conflict or uneven development.

A movement by a group to break away and form its own state.

A state's effort to annex territory in another state inhabited by its own nationality.

Agricultural land use as concentric rings around a market, set by transportation cost.

Farming to feed the farmer's own family, common in less-developed regions.

Farming to produce food for sale, common in developed regions.

Farming using much labor or capital on a small area of land.

Farming using little labor or capital over a large area of land.

Clearing and farming a plot, then moving on as soil fertility declines (slash-and-burn).

Clearing land by cutting and burning vegetation to enrich the soil briefly.

Herding domesticated animals across dry lands, moving with the seasons.

The seasonal movement of livestock between mountain and lowland pastures.

Large commercial farms in the tropics growing one cash crop for export.

Growing a single crop over a large area, which can deplete soil and raise risk.

The system of commercial farming, including inputs, processing, and distribution.

The price a user will pay for land decreases with distance from the central market.

The Neolithic domestication of plants and animals that began settled farming.

The mechanization of farming tied to the Industrial Revolution, raising output.

The mid-1900s spread of high-yield seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation.

A region where farming originated independently and spread by diffusion.

Alternating the crops grown on a field to maintain soil fertility.

Growing two or more crops on the same land in a single year.

A farming system that grows crops and raises animals together.

Commercial farming of milk products, located near markets due to perishability.

Commercial growing of fruits and vegetables for nearby urban markets.

A survey system defining land using natural features and physical markers.

A rectangular U.S. survey system dividing land into a grid of squares.

A survey system of narrow plots running back from a river or road.

Dairy and market gardening — perishable, heavy goods grown closest to the market.

Livestock ranching — the least intensive land use, farthest from market.

A genetically modified organism, used to raise yields or resistance, with debated effects.

A country's largest city, more than twice the size of the next largest and dominant in it.

The growth in the share of people living in cities and the expansion of urban areas.

Christaller's model explaining the size, number, and spacing of settlements.

The minimum population needed to support a good or service.

The maximum distance people will travel to obtain a good or service.

A country's nth-largest city is about 1/n the size of its largest city.

The commercial heart of a city, with offices and the highest land values.

Burgess's model of a city as five rings growing outward from the CBD.

Hoyt's model of a city as wedges of land use following transport corridors.

Harris and Ullman's model of a city with several centers, not one.

A model of a city with edge cities scattered around the original CBD, linked by highways.

Griffin-Ford model: a CBD with a wealthy spine and poorer rings of informal housing outward.

Shows land value falling with distance from the CBD, shaping land use.

A node of offices and retail on the outskirts of a metro area, away from the old CBD.

The movement of people and activities from the city center to surrounding suburbs.

The unplanned, low-density spread of a city into surrounding rural land.

Planning that limits sprawl through compact, mixed-use, transit-oriented development.

Design promoting walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods with a sense of community.

The renovation of a deteriorated neighborhood that raises values and displaces residents.

The discriminatory denial of loans or services to residents of certain areas.

Persuading owners to sell cheaply by stoking fears of demographic change.

The process by which housing passes from higher- to lower-income occupants over time.

An urban area with more than 10 million people.

An urban area with more than 20 million people.

A city that is a command center of the global economy (New York, London, Tokyo).

The ranking of settlements by size and the services they provide.

An informal, often unauthorized residential area on the urban edge in developing countries.

Unregulated economic activity outside official records, common in developing-city economies.

The shift to machine and factory production that began in Britain and diffused outward.

Economic activity that extracts raw materials — farming, mining, fishing.

Economic activity that makes goods — manufacturing.

Economic activity that provides services — retail, transport, health.

Economic activity based on information and knowledge — research, finance.

The highest-level decision-making activity — top executives and officials.

Industry locates to minimize transport, labor, and agglomeration costs.

The clustering of businesses to share services, labor, and infrastructure.

An industry not tied to a resource and free to locate almost anywhere.

An industry that locates near raw materials because its inputs are heavy to move.

An industry that locates near markets because its product is heavy or bulky to ship.

A place where goods transfer between transport modes, attracting industry.

A country's ability to produce a good at lower opportunity cost than others.

When two places trade because each has what the other wants.

The total value of goods and services produced within a country in a year.

Gross national income divided by population; an average income measure.

A measure combining life expectancy, education, and income per capita (0 to 1).

A measure of gaps between women and men in health, empowerment, and the labor market.

A measure of income inequality within a country (0 = equal, 1 = unequal).

A model that all countries develop through five stages from traditional society to mass consumption.

Wallerstein's model of the global economy as one system of core, semi-periphery, and periphery.

Wealthy, industrialized regions with advanced technology and high wages.

Less-developed regions that supply raw materials and cheap labor and stay poorer.

Middle-income, industrializing regions between core and periphery.

The view that poor countries are kept underdeveloped by their reliance on rich ones.

Reliance on exporting one or a few raw materials, leaving an economy vulnerable.

Small loans to low-income entrepreneurs who lack access to traditional banking.

An area with favorable trade and tax rules to attract foreign investment.

Contracting work to outside firms, often abroad, to cut costs.