GLOSSARY

absorbing barrier
A barrier that completely halts diffusion of innovations and blocks the spread of cultural elements.
acculturation
The adoption by an ethnic group of enough of the ways of the host society to be able to function economically and socially.
adaptive strategy
The unique way in which each culture uses its particular physical environment; those aspects of culture that serve to provide the necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter, and defense.
agribusiness
Highly mechanized, large-scale farming, usually under corporate ownership.
agricultural landscape
The cultural landscape of agricultural areas.
agricultural region
A geographic region defined by a distinctive combination of physical and environmental conditions; crop type; settlement patterns; and labor, cultivation, and harvesting practices.
agricultural surplus
The amount of food grown by a society that exceeds the demands of its population.
agriculture
The cultivation of domesticated crops and the raising of domesticated animals.
agroforestry
A cultivation system that features the interplanting of trees with field crops.
alternative energy
Alternatives to traditional fossil fuels, including hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, biofuel, and “clean” coal.
amenity landscapes
Landscapes that are prized for their natural and cultural aesthetic qualities by the tourism and real estate industries and their customers.
Anatolian hypothesis
A theory of language diffusion holding that the movement of Indo-European languages from the area in contemporary Turkey known as Anatolia followed the spread of plant domestication technologies.
animists
Adherents of animism, the idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans but also in animals, plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities of the natural environment.
aquaculture
The cultivation, under controlled conditions, of aquatic organisms, primarily for food but also for scientific and aquarium uses.
assimilation
The complete blending of an ethnic group into the host society, resulting in the loss of all distinctive ethnic traits.
automobile cities
Cities whose spatial layout—both in terms of extent and form—is dictated by the near ubiquity of individual automobile ownership.
axis mundi
The symbolic center of cosmomagical cities, often demarcated by a large vertical structure.

baseline maps
Also called general maps, baseline maps provide basic information such as coastlines, country, and boundaries.
bilingualism
The ability to speak two languages fluently.
biodiversity
Biological diversity of the entire living world, as measured at various scales including diversity among individuals, populations, species, communities, and ecosystems.
biofuel
Broadly, this term refers to any form of energy derived from biological matter, increasingly used in reference to replacements for fossil fuels in internal combustion engines, industrial processes, and the heating and cooling of buildings.
border zones
The areas where different regions meet and sometimes overlap.
Brandt Line
Division of the countries of the world into two regions: wealthy and poor. The Brandt Line is named after former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, and was a concept commonly applied in the 1970s through the 1980s.
buffer state
An independent but small and weak country lying between two powerful countries.

cadastral pattern
The shapes formed by property borders; the pattern of land ownership.
carbon cap and trade
Programs that limit (cap) carbon emissions, and lower the limit over time, as well as providing economic incentives for companies to find innovative ways to remain below their carbon cap.
carrying capacity
The maximum number of people that can be supported in a given area.
cartogram
A map that results from using a thematic variable rather than geographic area or distance.
central business district (CBD)
The central portion of a city, characterized by high-density land uses.
central-place theory
A set of models designed to explain the spatial distribution of urban service centers.
centrifugal force
Any factor that disrupts the internal unity of a country.
centripetal force
Any factor that supports the internal unity of a country.
chain migration
The tendency of people to migrate along channels, over a period of time, from specific source areas to specific destinations.
channelization
A process whereby a specific source region becomes linked to a particular destination, so neighbors in the old place became neighbors in the new place as well.
choropleth maps
Maps that use data aggregated over a predefined geographic area, typically a political designation such as a country, province, or state.
circulation
A term that implies an ongoing set of movements of people, ideas, or things that have no particular center or periphery.
cleavage model
A political-geographic model suggesting that persistent regional patterns in voting behavior, sometimes leading to separatism, can usually be explained in terms of tensions pitting urban against rural, core against periphery, capitalists against workers, and power group against minority culture.
colonialism
The forceful appropriation of a territory by a distant state, often involving the displacement of indigenous populations to make way for colonial settlers; the building and maintaining of colonies in one territory by people based elsewhere.
consumer nationalism
A situation in which local consumers favor nationally produced goods over imported goods as part of a nationalist political agenda.
contact conversion
Spread of religious beliefs by personal contact.
contagious diffusion
A type of expansion diffusion in which cultural innovation spreads by person-to-person contact, moving wavelike through an area and population without regard to social status.
conventional agriculture
The widely adopted commercial, industrialized form of farming that uses a range of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides to control pests and maximize productivity; a term that emerged following the creation of alternative forms, such as organic farming.
convergence hypothesis
A hypothesis holding that cultural differences among places are being reduced by improved transportation and communications systems, leading to a homogenization of popular culture.
cool chain
The refrigeration and transport technologies that allow for the distribution of perishables.
core area
The territorial nucleus from which a country grows in area and over time, often containing the national capital and the main center of commerce, culture, and industry.
core-periphery
A concept based on the tendency of both formal and functional culture regions to consist of a core or node, in which defining traits are purest or functions are headquartered, and a periphery that is tributary and displays fewer of the defining traits.
cornucopians
Those who believe that science and technology can solve resource shortages. In this view, human beings are our greatest resource rather than a burden to be limited.
cosmomagical cities
Types of cities that are laid out in accordance with religious principles, characteristic of very early cities.
creole
A language derived from a pidgin language that has acquired a fuller vocabulary and become the native language of its speakers.
cultural diffusion
The spread of elements of culture from the point of origin over an area.
cultural ecology
Broadly defined, the study of the relationships between the physical environment and culture; narrowly (and more commonly) defined, the study of culture as an adaptive system that facilitates human adaptation to nature and environmental change.
cultural landscape
The visible human imprint on the land.
cultural maladaptation
Poor or inadequate adaptation that occurs when a group pursues an adaptive strategy that, in the short run, fails to provide the necessities of life or, in the long run, destroys the environment that nourishes it.
cultural practices
The social activities and interactions—ranging from religious rituals to food preferences to clothing—that collectively distinguish group identity.
cultural preadaptation
A complex of adaptive traits and skills possessed in advance of migration by a group, giving it survival ability and competitive advantage in occupying the new environment.
cultural simplification
The process by which immigrant ethnic groups lose certain aspects of their traditional culture in the process of settling overseas, creating a new culture that is less complex than the old.
culturally preadapted
(See cultural preadaptation)
culture
A total way of life held in common by a group of people, including such learned features as speech, ideology, behavior, livelihood, technology, and government; or the local, customary way of doing things—a way of life; a never-changing process in which a group is actively engaged; a dynamic mix of symbols, beliefs, speech, and practices.
culture hearth
A focused geographic area where important innovations are born and from which they spread.

death rate
The number of deaths per year per 1000 people.
deindustrialization
The decline of primary and secondary industry, accompanied by a rise in the service sectors of the industrial economy.
demographic transition
A term used to describe the movement from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates.
depopulation
A decrease in population that sometimes occurs as the result of sudden catastrophic events, such as natural disasters, disease epidemics, and warfare.
desertification
A process whereby human actions unintentionally turn productive lands into deserts through agricultural and pastoral misuse, destroying vegetation and soil to the point where they cannot regenerate.
dialect
A distinctive local or regional variant of a language that remains mutually intelligible to speakers of other dialects of that language; a subtype of a language.
diaspora culture
Ethnic, racial, and national population concentrations of people displaced and geographically scattered from their homelands. Such displaced groups often maintain strong social and economic ties to their homelands.
diffusion
The movement of people, ideas, or things from one location outward toward other locations.
digital divide
A pattern of unequal access to advanced information technologies produced by socioeconomic inequalities and measured at scales ranging from the individual to countries and world regions.
dispersed
A type of settlement form in which people live relatively distant from each other.
domesticated animal
An animal kept for some utilitarian purpose whose breeding is controlled by humans and whose survival is dependent on humans; domesticated animals differ genetically and behaviorally from wild animals.
domesticated plant
A plant deliberately planted and tended by humans that is genetically distinct from its wild ancestors as a result of selective breeding.
double-cropping
Harvesting twice a year from the same parcel of land.

ecofeminism
A doctrine proposing that women are inherently better environmental preservationists than men because the traditional roles of women involved creating and nurturing life, whereas the traditional roles of men too often necessitated death and destruction.
ecotheology
The study of the influence of religious belief on habitat modification.
effective sovereignty
The idea that states’ power to effectively enforce or ignore sovereignty claims irrespective of territorial boundaries varies in time and from country to country.
electronic waste
Used electronics, such as mobile phones, computers, office equipment, television sets, and refrigerators, which can no longer be used for their intended purpose and are discarded. Also known as e-waste.
electoral geography
The study of the interactions among space, place, and region and the conduct and results of elections.
enclave
A piece of territory surrounded by, but not part of, a country.
environmental determinism
The belief that cultures are directly or indirectly shaped by the physical environment.
environmental perception
The belief that culture depends more on what people perceive the environment to be than on the actual character of the environment; perception, in turn, is colored by the teachings of culture.
environmental racism
The targeting of areas where ethnic or racial minorities live with respect to environmental contamination or failure to enforce environmental regulations.
environmental refugees
People who are displaced from their homes due to severe environmental disruption.
escalation diffusion
The idea that civil wars may escalate through the diffusion of violence across ever-greater areas over time.
ethnic cleansing
The removal of unwanted ethnic minority populations from a nation state through mass killing, deportation, or imprisonment.
ethnic flag
A readily visible marker of ethnicity on the landscape.
ethnic group
A group of people who share a common ancestry and cultural tradition, often living as a minority group in a larger society.
ethnic homelands
Sizable areas inhabited by an ethnic minority that exhibits a strong sense of attachment to the region and often exercises some measure of political and social control over it.
ethnic islands
Small ethnic areas in the rural countryside; sometimes called folk islands.
ethnic neighborhood
A voluntary community where people of like origin reside by choice.
ethnic religion
A religion identified with a particular ethnic or tribal group; does not seek converts.
ethnic substrate
Regional cultural distinctiveness that remains following the assimilation of an ethnic homeland.
ethnoburbs
A suburban ethnic neighborhood, sometimes home to relatively affluent immigration populations.
ethnographic boundary
A political boundary that follows some cultural border, such as a linguistic or religious border.
ethnolect
A dialect spoken by a particular ethnic group.
Eurocentric
Using the historical experience of Europe as the benchmark for all cases.
European Union
Established by European countries through a set of political, cultural, and economic treaties and supranational institutions.
exclave
A piece of national territory separated from the main body of a country by the territory of another country.
expansion diffusion
The spread of innovations within an area in a snowballing process, so that the total number of knowers or users becomes greater and the area of occurrence grows.
extensive agriculture
The practices of farming and livestock raising using low levels of labor and capital relative to the areal extent of land under production, relying chiefly on natural soil fertility and prevailing climate.

farm villages
Clustered rural settlements of moderate size, inhabited by people who are engaged in farming.
farmstead
The center of farm operations, containing the house, barn, sheds, and livestock pens.
federal state
An independent country that gives considerable powers and even autonomy to its constituent parts.
feedlot
A factory-like farm devoted to either livestock fattening or dairying; all feed is imported and no crops are grown on the farm.
first urban revolution
The connection between agricultural innovations with the rise of the world’s first true cities.
First World
A term used to describe the group of wealthy, democratic, capitalist nations across the world.
folk architecture
Structures built by members of a folk society or culture in a traditional manner and style, without the assistance of professional architects or blueprints, using locally available raw materials.
folk culture
A small, cohesive, stable, isolated, nearly self-sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race; characterized by a strong family or clan structure, order maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family, little division of labor other than that between the sexes, frequent and strong interpersonal relationships, and a material culture consisting mainly of handmade goods.
folk fortress
A stronghold area with natural defensive qualities, useful in the defense of a country against invaders.
foodborne disease outbreaks
When two or more people acquire the same illness from the same contaminated food or drink.
foodways
Customary behaviors associated with food preparation and consumption.
formal region
A cultural region inhabited by people who have one or more cultural traits in common.
Fourth World
A term used to describe the world’s poorest nations.
functional region
A cultural area that functions as a unit politically, socially, or economically.
fundamentalism
A movement to return to the founding principles of a religion, which can include literal interpretation of sacred texts, or the attempt to follow the ways of a religious founder as closely as possible.

Gaia hypothesis
The theory that there is one interacting planetary ecosystem, Gaia, that includes all living things and the land, waters, and atmosphere in which they live; further, that Gaia functions almost as a living organism, acting to control deviations in climate and to correct chemical imbalances, so as to preserve Earth as a living planet.
gated communities
Highly securitized residential enclaves that are more or less self-governing.
GDP per capita
The mathematical result of dividing a country’s GDP by its national population. (The Latin per capita means “per head.”)
gender roles
What it means to be a man or a woman in different cultural and historical contexts.
generic toponym
The descriptive part of many place-names, often repeated throughout a culture area.
genetically modified (GM) crops
Plants whose genetic characteristics have been altered through recombinant DNA technology.
genocide
The systematic killing of a racial, ethnic, religious, or linguistic group.
gentrification
The displacement of lower-income residents by higher-income residents as buildings in deteriorated areas of city centers are restored.
geography
The study of spatial patterns and of differences and similarities from one place to another in environment and culture.
geometric boundary
A political border drawn in a regular, geometric manner, often a straight line, without regard for environmental or cultural patterns.
geopolitics
The influence of the habitat on political entities.
gerrymandering
The drawing of electoral district boundaries in an awkward pattern to enhance the voting impact of one constituency at the expense of another.
ghetto
Traditionally, an area within a city where an ethnic group lives, either by choice or by force. Today in the United States, the term typically indicates an impoverished African American neighborhood.
global cities
Cities that are control centers of the global economy.
global climate change
Also known as global warming, global climate change involves alterations in climate caused by human activity and, most particularly, by the greatly increased amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by burning fossil fuels.
Global South
A term that has largely replaced “Third World” when referring to regions of Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia, in recognition that much of the world’s dynamism, growth, and power reside in these places.
globalization
The binding together of all the lands and peoples of the world into an integrated system driven by capitalistic free markets, in which cultural diffusion is rapid, independent states are weakened, and cultural homogenization is encouraged.
glocalization
Forces of change interact with local cultures, altering both in the process.
Great Migration
The twentieth-century movement of 6 million African Americans from the rural southern states to the cities of the midwestern and northeastern states.
green revolution
The recent introduction of high-yield hybrid crops and chemical fertilizers and pesticides into traditional Asian agricultural systems, most notably paddy rice farming, with attendant increases in production and ecological damage.
greenhouse effect
A process in which the increased release of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, caused by industrial activity and deforestation, permits solar short-wave heat radiation to reach Earth’s surface but blocks long-wave outgoing radiation, causing a thermal imbalance and global heating.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
The total dollar value of all goods and services produced in a country over a specific period, usually a year.

hamlet
A small rural settlement, smaller than a village.
heartland
The interior of a sizable landmass, removed from maritime connections; in particular, the interior of the Eurasian continent.
heartland theory
A 1904 proposal by Halford Mackinder that the key to world conquest lay in control of the interior of Eurasia.
hierarchical diffusion
A type of expansion diffusion in which innovations spread from one important person to another or from one urban center to another, temporarily bypassing other persons or rural areas.
Human Development Index (HDI)
A numerical value devised by the United Nations Development Programme that is used to measure how well basic needs are being met. It is a composite index, derived from three areas: life expectancy, education, and income.
human geography
The study of the relationships between people and the places and spaces in which they live.
hunting and gathering
The killing of wild game and the harvesting of wild plants to provide food in traditional cultures.
hydraulic civilization
A civilization based on large-scale irrigation.

imperialism
A relationship whereby wealthy nations dominate poor ones by controlling their economic, political, and cultural systems.
independent invention
A cultural innovation that is developed in two or more locations by individuals or groups working independently.
indigenous culture
A culture group that constitutes the original inhabitants of a territory, distinct from the dominant national culture, which is often derived from colonial occupation.
indigenous technical knowledge (ITK)
Highly localized knowledge about environmental conditions and sustainable land-use practices.
Industrial Revolution
Beginning in England in the early 1700s, the Industrial Revolution saw the rapid transformation of the economy through the introduction of machines, new power sources, and novel chemical processes. These replaced human hands in the making of products, initially in the cotton textile industry.
infant mortality rate
The number of infants per 1000 live births who die before reaching one year of age.
intensive agriculture
The expenditure of much labor and capital on a piece of land to increase its productivity. In contrast, extensive agriculture involves less labor and capital.
intercropping
The practice of growing two or more different types of crops in the same field at the same time.
interdependence
Relations between regions or countries of mutual, but not necessarily equal, dependence.
internal migration
Human migration that occurs within the borders of a country.
internally displaced persons (IDPs)
Persons or groups that have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict, natural disaster, or persecution but who remain within the borders of their home country.
international migration
Human migration across country borders.
involuntary migration
Also called forced migration, refers to the forced displacement of a population, whether by government policy (such as a resettlement program), warfare or other violence, ethnic cleansing, disease, natural disaster, or enslavement.
isogloss
The border of usage of an individual word or pronunciation.
Kurgan hypothesis
A theory of language diffusion holding that the spread of Indo-European languages originated with animal domestication in the central Asian steppes and grew more aggressively and swiftly than proponents of the Anatolian hypothesis maintain.

land-division patterns
A term that refers to the spatial patterns of different land uses.
language
A mutually agreed-on system of symbolic communication that has a spoken and usually a written expression.
language family
A group of related languages derived from a common ancestor.
language hotspots
Those places on Earth that are home to the most unique, misunderstood, or endangered languages.
legend
Explains the meaning of symbols on a map.
leisure landscapes
Landscapes that are planned and designed primarily for entertainment purposes, such as ski and beach resorts.
lingua franca
An existing, well-established language of communication and commerce used widely where it is not a mother tongue.
linguistic refuge area
An area protected by isolation or inhospitable environmental conditions in which a language or dialect has survived.
livestock fattening
A commercial type of agriculture that produces fattened cattle and hogs for meat.
local consumption cultures
Distinct consumption practices and preferences in food, clothing, music, and so forth formed in specific places and historical moments.

Malthusian
Those who hold the views of Thomas Malthus, who believed that overpopulation is the root cause of poverty, illness, and warfare.
map symbols
Graphic figures that represent any number of real-world phenomena.
marchland
A strip of territory, traditionally one day’s march for infantry, that served as a boundary zone for independent countries in premodern times.
mariculture
A branch of aquaculture specific to the cultivation of marine organisms, often involving the transformation of coastal environments and the production of distinctive new landscapes.
market gardening
Farming devoted to specialized fruit, vegetable, or vine crops for sale rather than consumption.
material culture
All physical, tangible objects made and used by members of a cultural group, such as clothing, buildings, tools and utensils, instruments, furniture, and artwork; the visible aspect of culture.
mechanistic view of nature
The view that humans are separate from nature and hold dominion over it and that the habitat is an integrated mechanism governed by external forces that the human mind can understand and manipulate.
megachurch
Large Protestant church structures, usually located in suburban areas of the United States, that have large congregations (2000-10,000 members) and utilize business models to tailor their spaces and services to their congregations’ needs.
megacities
A term that refers to particularly large urban centers.
migrant workers
Most broadly, this term refers to people working outside of their home country. Migrant workers are particularly critical to large-scale commercial agriculture.
migrations
The large-scale movements of people between different regions of the world.
mobility
The relative ability of people, ideas, or things to move freely through space.
model
An abstraction, an imaginary situation, proposed by geographers to simulate laboratory conditions so that they can isolate certain causal forces for detailed study.
monoculture
The raising of only one crop on a huge tract of land in agribusiness.
monotheistic religion
The worship of only one god.

national culture
The controversial idea that citizens possess a set of recognizable values, behaviors, and beliefs—often including the same ethnic and linguistic traits—that express the core culture of each modern nation.
nationalism
The sense of belonging to and self-identifying with a national culture.
nationalization
Government takeover of the transportation infrastructure and fuel sources from private foreign ownership, occurring in many previously colonized nations in the twentieth century.
nation-state
An independent country dominated by a relatively homogeneous culture group.
natural boundary
A political border that follows some feature of the natural environment, such as a river or mountain ridge.
natural hazard
An inherent danger present in a given habitat, such as floods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, or earthquakes; often perceived differently by different peoples.
nature-culture
A term that refers to the complex relationships between people and the physical environment, including how culture, politics, and economies affect people’s ecological situation and resource use.
neolocalism
The desire to reembrace the uniqueness and authenticity of place, in response to globalization.
neo-Malthusians
Modern-day followers of Thomas Malthus.
node
A central point in a functional culture region where functions are coordinated and directed.
nomadic livestock herder
A member of a group that continually moves with its livestock in search of forage for its animals.
nonmaterial culture
The wide range of tales, songs, lore, beliefs, values, and customs that pass from generation to generation as part of an oral or written tradition.
nucleation
A relatively dense settlement form.

organic agriculture
A form of farming that relies on manuring, mulching, and biological pest control and rejects the use of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and genetically modified crops.
organic view of nature
The view that humans are part of, not separate from, nature and that the habitat possesses a soul and is filled with nature-spirits.
orientation
Refers to the compass direction of the top of a map.
orthodox religions
Strands within most major religions that emphasize purity of faith and are not open to blending with other religions.

paddy rice farming
The cultivation of rice on a paddy, or small flooded field enclosed by mud dikes, practiced in the humid areas of the Far East.
peasant
A farmer belonging to a folk culture and practicing a traditional system of agriculture.
permeable barrier
A barrier that permits some aspects of an innovation to diffuse through it but weakens and retards continued spread; an innovation can be modified in passing through a permeable barrier.
physical environment
All aspects of the natural physical surroundings, such as climate, terrain, soils, vegetation, and wildlife.
pidgin
A composite language consisting of a small vocabulary borrowed from the linguistic groups involved in commerce.
pilgrimages
Journeys to places of religious importance.
place
A term used to connote the subjective, humanistic, and culturally oriented notion of a specific location.
placelessness
A spatial standardization that diminishes regional variety; may result from the spread of popular culture, which can diminish or destroy the uniqueness of place through cultural standardization on a national or even worldwide scale.
plantation
A large landholding devoted to specialized production of a tropical cash crop.
plantation agriculture
A system of monoculture for producing export crops requiring relatively large amounts of land and capital; originally dependent on slave labor.
political geography
The geographic study of politics and political matters.
polyglot
A mixture of different languages.
polytheistic religion
The worship of many gods.
popular culture
A dynamic culture based in large, heterogeneous societies permitting considerable individualism, innovation, and change; having a money-based economy, division of labor into professions, secular institutions of control, and weak interpersonal ties; producing and consuming machine-made goods.
population density
A measurement of population per unit area (e.g., per square mile).
population explosion
The rapid, accelerating increase in world population since about 1650 and especially since about 1900.
population geography
The study of the spatial and ecological aspects of population, including distribution, density per unit of land area, fertility, gender, health, age, mortality, and migration.
population pyramid
A graph used to show the age and sex composition of a population.
possibilism
A school of thought based on the belief that humans, rather than the physical environment, are the primary active force; that any environment offers a number of different possible ways for a culture to develop; and that the choices among these possibilities are guided by cultural heritage.
postdevelopment
A theoretical approach that is critical of standard development practices, asserting that traditional development efforts do not work because they are ultimately about controlling, not empowering, poor nations and people.
primary sector
The set of economic activities that involves extracting natural resources from the Earth.
primate city
A city of large size and dominant power within a country.
proselytic religions
Religions that actively seek new members and aim to convert all humankind.
protracted refugee situation (PRS)
Results when people are born and mature into adulthood in refugee camps with no promise of becoming citizens in a new country and little hope of returning to their home country.
proxemics
The study of the size and shape of people’s envelopes of personal space.
push-and-pull factors
Unfavorable, repelling conditions (push factors) and favorable, attractive conditions (pull factors) that interact to affect migration and other elements of diffusion.

quaternary sector
Intellectual and informational economic activities.

race
A classification system that is sometimes understood as arising from genetically significant differences among human populations, or from visible differences in human physiognomy, or as a social construction that varies across time and space.
racism
The belief that human capabilities are determined by racial classification and that some races are superior to others.
ranching
The commercial raising of herd livestock on a large landholding.
range
In central-place theory, the average maximum distance people will travel to purchase a good or service.
refugees
Those fleeing from persecution in their country of nationality. The persecution can be religious, political, racial, or ethnic.
region
A grouping of like places or the functional union of places to form a spatial unit.
regional trading blocs
Agreements made among geographically proximate countries that reduce trade barriers in order to better compete with other regional markets.
relic boundary
A former political border that no longer functions as a boundary.
religion
A social system involving a set of beliefs and practices through which people seek harmony with the universe and attempt to influence the forces of nature, life, and death.
relocation diffusion
The spread of an innovation or other element of culture that occurs with the bodily relocation (migration) of the individual or group responsible for the innovation.
renewable resources
Those primary sector products that can be replenished naturally at a rate sufficient to balance their depletion by human use.
resilience
The ability to recover quickly from adversity.
return migration
A type of ethnic diffusion that involves the voluntary movement of a group of migrants back to their ancestral or native country or homeland.
right to the city
The notion that all urban residents, not just the privileged, should be able to access city spaces and have a voice in how the city is shaped and used.
rimland
The maritime fringe of a country or continent; in particular, the western, southern, and eastern edges of the Eurasian continent.

sacred spaces
Areas recognized by a religious group as worthy of devotion, loyalty, esteem, or fear to the extent that they become sought out, avoided, inaccessible to nonbelievers, and/or removed from economic use.
satellite state
A small, weak country dominated by one powerful neighbor to the extent that some or much of its independence is lost.
scale
The distance on a map in relation to the distance in actual space.
seasonal migration
Usually associated with crop harvest periods, migrants move according to seasonal changes in weather.
second urban revolution
The connection between industrial innovations with the rise of capitalist cities.
Second World
A term used during the Cold War era to describe the group of countries that were communist or socialist in their governmental philosophy, and had centrally planned rather than free-market economic systems.
secondary sector
The set of economic activities that involves processing the raw materials extracted by primary sector activities into usable goods. Commonly referred to as manufacturing.
sedentary cultivation
Farming in fixed and permanent fields.
settlement forms
The spatial arrangement of buildings, roads, towns, and other features that people construct while inhabiting an area.
sex ratio
The numerical ratio of males to females in a population.
shantytowns
Precarious and often illegal housing settlements, usually made up of temporary shelters and located on the outskirts of a large city.
slang
Words and phrases that are not part of a standard, recognized vocabulary for a given language but that are nonetheless used and understood by some of its speakers.
South-South cooperation
Trade, technological innovation, and other forms of exchange and assistance that occur between the larger and wealthier nations of the Global South and poorer nations.
sovereignty
The right of individual states to control political and economic affairs within their territorial boundaries without external interference.
space
A term used to connote the objective, quantitative, theoretical, model-based, economics-oriented type of geography that seeks to understand spatial systems and networks through application of the principles of social science.
sprawl
The tendency of cities to grow outward in an unchecked manner, which is particularly notable in automobile cities.
state
A centralized authority that enforces a single political, economic, and legal system within its territorial boundaries. Often used synonymously with “country.”
step migration
A process by which a group proceeds to its final destination via a series of intermediate migrations.
stepwise migration
(See step migration)
stimulus diffusion
A type of expansion diffusion in which a specific trait fails to spread but the underlying idea or concept is accepted.
streetcar suburbs
The extension of urban residential areas along streetcar lines in the late nineteenth century.
subcultures
Groups of people with norms, values, and material practices that differentiate them from the dominant culture to which they belong.
subsistence agriculture
Farming to supply the minimum food and materials necessary to survive.
subsistence economies
Economies in which people seek to consume only what they produce and to produce only for local consumption rather than for exchange or export.
suitcase farm
In American commercial grain agriculture, a farm on which no one lives; planting and harvesting are done by hired migratory crews.
supranational organization
A group of independent countries joined together for purposes of mutual interest.
supranationalism
A situation that occurs when states willingly relinquish some degree of sovereignty in order to gain the benefits of belonging to a larger political-economic entity.
survey pattern
A pattern of original land survey in an area.
sustainability
The survival of a land-use system for centuries or millennia without destruction of the environmental base, allowing generation after generation to continue to live there.
swidden cultivation
A type of agriculture characterized by land rotation in which temporary clearings are used for several years and then abandoned to be replaced by new clearings; also known as slash-and-burn agriculture.
symbolic landscapes
Landscapes that express the values, beliefs, and meanings of a particular culture.
syncretic religions
Religions, or strands within religions, that combine elements of two or more belief systems.

territorial fission
Occurs when an ethnic or linguistic minority population seeks to secede from the state or to alter state territorial boundaries to promote cultural homogeneity and political autonomy.
territoriality
A learned cultural response, rooted in European history, that produced the external bounding and internal territorial organization characteristic of modern states.
tertiary sector
The set of economic activities that refers to all the different types of work necessary to move goods and resources around and deliver them to people; in other words, service activities.
thematic maps
Maps that emphasize a specific phenomenon or process, such as transportation, migration, and agricultural production.
Third World
A term used to describe the world’s poor nations as a group. During the Cold War era, these were also the nations that were not communist or socialist; in other words, they were not aligned with either the First or Second World.
threshold
In central-place theory, the size of the population required to make provision of goods and services economically feasible.
time-distance decay
The decrease in acceptance of a cultural innovation with increasing time and distance from its origin.
toponym
A place-name, usually consisting of two parts, the generic and the specific.
total fertility rate (TFR)
The number of children the average woman will bear during her reproductive lifetime (15-44 or 15-49 years of age). A TFR of less than 2.1, if maintained, will cause a natural decline of population.
transculturation
The notion that people adopt elements of other cultures as well as contributing elements of their own culture, thereby transforming both cultures.
transnational migrations
The movements of groups of people who maintain ties to their homelands after they have migrated.

uneven development
The tendency for industry to develop in a core-periphery pattern, enriching the industrialized countries of the core and impoverishing the less industrialized periphery. This term is also used to describe urban patterns in which suburban areas are enriched while the inner city is impoverished.
unitary state
An independent state that concentrates power in the central government and grants little authority to the provinces.
universalizing religions
Also called proselytic religions, they expand through active conversion of new members and aim to encompass all of humankind.
urban agriculture
The raising of food, including fruit, vegetables, meat, and milk, inside cities, especially common in the Third World.
urban footprint
The spatial extent of the impacts of urban areas on the natural environment.
urban hearth areas
Regions in which the world’s first cities evolved.
urban heat island
A mass of warm air generated and retained by urban building materials and human activities; it sits over the city and causes urban temperatures to be higher than those of surrounding areas.
urbanized population
The proportion of a country’s population living in cities.

vernacular (culture) region
A (culture) region perceived to exist by its inhabitants, based in the collective spatial perception of the population at large, and bearing a generally accepted name or nickname (such as “Dixie”).

World Heritage Sites
Places (e.g., buildings, cities, forests, lakes, deserts, archeological ruins) that the UN’s International Heritage Programme judges to possess outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity.

zero population growth
A stabilized population created when an average of only two children per couple survive to adulthood, so that, eventually, the number of deaths equals the number of births.