Geography Final Studyguide

Geography
“geo” the earth
“graphy” to describe

5 Key Themes of Geography
1. Location – specific location, where?
2. Place – unique properties of a place, no two places on earth are alike
3. Movement – communication, circulation, migration, and diffusion across the Earth’s surface
4. Region – an area defined by uniform characteristics
5. Human-Earth Relationships – human interaction with an environment; resource exploitation, environmental pollution, hazard perception

Geography Matters: A cautionary tale...
Mauritius
Mauritania

Differentiation
Describe and explain differences between places

Integration
Describe and explain linkages or connections between places

Cautions
No region is homogenous throughout
Regional borders are fuzzy
Obscures global connections

Vernacular
Vague cognitive borders
Used by the public to refer to a general area
Combination of traits real or imagined
Formal
Distinct boundaries constructed using one specific trait
Functional
Based on a certain activity or organization

Globalization
Increasing interconnectedness of people and places through converging processes of economic, political and cultural change.
How places remain distinct more interconnected and interdependent

Converging Currents of Globalization
Global communication
Global transportation
Powerful transnational corporations and financial institutions.
International free trade agreements.
Market economies and privatization.
Homogenous global consumer culture.
Economic inequity, disparities

Proponents of Globalization
Logical expression of modern international capitalism.
Economic system wealth and means of producing wealth are privately owned and controlled rather than public or state controlled.
New wealth will trickle down from rich to poor (countries and individuals).
Will spread benefits of new ideas and technologies.
Countries can produce goods best suited.
Need to attract capital from abroad will force countries to adopt sound economic policies.
World’s poor countries will catch up to rich ones.

Opponents of Globalization
Not “natural”; economic policy promoted by core countries results in inequities between “haves” and “have nots”
Promotes free-market, export-oriented economies at expense of localized, sustainable economies.
“Free market” economic model promoted for developing countries is not the one that Western industrial countries used for their own development.
Encourages “bubble” economies.

A Middle Ground?
Economic Globalization is probably unavoidable.
Even anti-globalization movement is aided by the Internet.
“Make globalization work” by investing in education and maintaining social cohesion.
Can be managed.

McDonald’s Strange Menu Around the World
By Beatrice Adams

Population
Different rates of population growth around the world
Also focus on migration rather than natural growth
Rural to Urban Migration
Population planning takes many forms
One Child Policy; Please Have Children Policy

Rate of natural increase (RNI) – world average is 1.2 percent/yr: annual growth rate for a country or region, expressed as a percentage increase or decrease; equals the number of births minus the number of deaths; excluding migration
Crude birth rate (CBR) the gross number of births divided by the total population, giving a figure per 1,000 of the population; world CBR is 21 per 1,000

Total fertility rate (TFR): the average number of children borne by a statistically average woman; world TFR is 2.7, but ranges from 1.5 (Europe) to 5.0 (Africa);
TFR=2.1, population is stable;
TFR>2.1, population is growing
TFR<2.1, population will decline

Crude death rate (CDR): the gross (total) number of deaths divided by the total population, producing a figure per 1,000 of the population; world CDR is 9 per 1,000
Young and Old Populations:
Percentage of population under age 15: global average is 30 percent, low is 17 percent (Europe); high of 42 percent (Africa); high number indicates great potential for future growth;
Percentage of population over age 65: identifies need for health care and other social services
Population pyramids graphically represent age and gender distribution of a population
Life expectancy: average number of years a person is expected to live

Population Pyramids
Demographic Transition Model
Stage 1:
High birth rate, high death rate; very slow growth, low RNI
Stage 2:
Death rate falls dramatically, birth rate remains high; high RNI
Stage 3:
Death rate remains low, birth rate drops; RNI slows
Stage 4:
Death rate low, birth rate low; low RNI (as in stage 1)
Stage 5:
Population is shrinking; Deindustrialization, Service-Economy

Migration Patterns
Pull forces: good conditions at a destination that cause people to immigrate to an area (economic opportunity, freedom, good climate)
Push forces: negative conditions in a person’s homeland that cause people to emigrate from (leave) an area (religious or political oppression, war, unemployment)
Net Migration:
Statistic that shows whether more people are entering or leaving a country
Rural-to-Urban migration:
Loss of jobs in agriculture causing rural-to-urban migration worldwide.

Population Geography

Urban Geography
Urban primacy:
City that is disproportionately large and/or dominates economic, political, cultural activities of a country (also called primate city)
Urban structure: distribution and pattern of land use within a city (central business district, retail, industry, housing, green space, etc.
Latin American City/U.S. City
Urban form: physical arrangement of buildings, streets, parks, architecture that gives each city its unique sense of place
Over-urbanization:
urban population grows more quickly than services to support people (e.g., jobs, housing, transportation, sewer, water, electrical lines)
Squatter settlements/informal settlements: illegal developments of makeshift housing on land neither owned nor rented by the settlers
Culture
Culture is learned (not innate), is shared (not individual), behavior; it is held in common by a group of people, empowering them with a “way of life”; culture includes both abstract and material dimensions.

In other words: Culture is learned behavior that is passed on by imitation, instruction, and example.
Abstract culture includes speech and religion
Material culture includes technology and housing
Culture changes over time
Note: experiencing another culture is useful for gaining perspective on your own.

What is Culture?
Geographic Importance of Culture
Geographers study culture because it leaves dramatic imprints on the earth
Language
Religion: strongest determinant of ethics.
Nationalism and Borders
Material Culture: tools, clothes, toys, etc.
Architecture: Acadian, shotgun
Religion: affects societal choices; creates sacred space

Cultural Collision
Cultural imperialism: active promotion of one cultural system over another.
British in India
Cultural nationalism: process of protecting and defending a certain cultural system against diluting or offensive cultural expressions while at the same time actively promoting indigenous culture
French language
Cultural syncretization or hybridization: blending of cultures to form a new type of culture
Creolization in Caribbean
Language
Dialect: a distinctiveness associated with a specific language (e.g., American and British English)
Lingua franca: third language adopted by people from different cultural groups who cannot speak each other’s language (i.e. Swahili, English)

Geography of World Religions
Universalizing religion: attempts to appeal to all peoples regardless of place or culture (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism)
Ethnic religion: identified closely with a specific ethnic group; faiths that usually do not seek new converts (e.g., Judaism, Hinduism)
Secularization:
exists when people consider themselves to be either non-religious or outright atheistic

The State
Geopolitics:
describes and explains the close link between geography and political activity, and focuses on the interaction between power, territory, and space, at all scales.

Boundary: the dividing line between one spatial unit or group and another Kurdish Nation
Nation—large group of people who share socio-cultural elements—language, religion, tradition, identity.
State—political entity with territorial boundaries recognized by other countries and internally governed by organizational structure
Nation-states—Homogenous cultural group occupying its own fully independent political territory.
--Formerly linked to homogenous culture like Japan
--Evolved to mean country
--Weakened by globalization

Boundaries
Ethnographic boundaries: borders that follow cultural traits such as boundaries or religion (e.g., Bosnia)

Geometric boundaries: perfectly straight lines, drawn without regard for physical or cultural features that usually follow a parallel of latitude or meridian of longitude (Africa)

Ethnicity: a shared cultural identity held by a group of people with a common background or history

The Colonial Imprint
Colonialism: formal establishment of governmental rule over a foreign population

Decolonialization: process of a colony gaining (or regaining) control over its territory and establishing a separate, independent government

Neocolonialism: economic strategies by which powerful states indirectly (and sometimes directly) extend their influence over other, weaker states

Geography of Wealth & Poverty
Core vs. Periphery—
Theory developed by Immanuel Wallerstein, book World Systems Theory.
“Third World” countries:
Developing world; Cold War era, describes countries that were not allied with democratic, mainly capitalistic (First World) or communist U.S.S.R. (Second World) superpowers.
“More-Developed Countries” (MDC) or “Less-Developed Countries” (LDC)
Refers to economic development and rich/poor world binary

Indicators of Economic Dev.
Development:
Qualitative and quantitative measures indicating structural changes with accompanying changes in the use of labor, capital and technology
Growth:
Increase in the size of a system; the agricultural or industrial output (product) of a country may grow
When a system grows, it gets bigger; when it develops, it gets better.

Measuring Economic Wealth
Gross domestic product
GDP is the total value of goods and services produced within a given country in a single year.
Gross national income (GNI):
Includes the value of all final goods and services produced within a country’s borders plus the net income from abroad; this omits non-market economic activity (bartering, household work) does not consider the degradation or depletion of natural resources that may constrain future economic growth (e.g., clear-cutting forests)
GNI per capita:
Divide GNI by the country’s population; this adjusts for varying population size
Purchasing power parity (PPP):
Gives a comparable figure for a standard “market basket” of goods and services purchased with a local currency to adjust for currency inflation and local cost of living.
Economic growth rate:
Annual rate of expansion for GDP

Economic Development
Indicators of Social Dev.
Life expectancy:
Average length of life expected at birth for a hypothetical male or female based on national death statistics.
Average world life expectancy is 66 (range from 4682)
Percent of population living on less than $2/day:
UN measure of extreme poverty
Under-age-5 mortality:
Number of children who die per 1000 people in the population
Influenced by health care, sanitation, availability of food
Gender equity:
Ratio of male to females in primary and secondary schools; if ratio above 100, more females than males are in school; if ratio below 100, more males than females are in school

Human Development Index Combines data on life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, gender equity and income.