AP Human Geography Exam Review – Flashcards

Phase in which a government enforces the boundary it has created.

Conflict over resources that may not be divided by the border, such as natural gas reserves beneath the soil.

Boundary that existed before the human cultures grew into current form

Divide of a region or state into smaller units, usually along ethnic lines.

Economic alliance (and precursor to the current EU) among Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg established before the end of World War II.

Independent country that exists between two larger countries that are conflicting

Area consisting of two or more countries located between two larger countries in conflict.

Force that divides a state's people and regions.

Force that unifies a state's people and regions.

Political space comprising a central city and surrounding farmland.

Control by a developed state over an underdeveloped area.

State with little variation in distance from its center point to any point on its boundary.

Organizational structure comprising a weak central government and regional governments holding the majority of power.

Region in a state wherein political and economic power is concentrated, like the nucleus of a cell.

Political boundary that marks changes in the cultural landscape, such as a boundary dividing territory according to religion or language.

Conflict over the language of the border agreement in a treaty or boundary contract.

Phase in which the exact location of a boundary is legally described and negotiated.

Phase in which a boundary's definition is drawn on a map.

Phase in which the boundary is visibly marked on the landscape by a fence, line, sign, wall or other means.

According to this theory, former colonies in South America, Africa, and Asia have not been able to heal from imperial domination and are still dependent on their former European colonizers.

Process of transferring some power from the central government to regional governments.

Notion that democratic allies must protect lands from falling to the communists because one such communist acquisition creates others, ultimately resulting in communist domination of the world. This theory led to the containment doctrine, intended to keep the communists from acquiring new lands, such as Vietnam.

State with a long, thin shape.

Part of a state surrounded completely by another state. Different from ethnic enclave.

Powerful emotional attachment people have for their nation when it is a minority within a state, making them feel they are different from the rest of the state's people.

Supranational economic alliance of European countries wanting to form a European market. Established in 1958, it was a precursor to the current European Union.

Supranational organization of nearly 25 member-states in Europe that have integrated for improved economic and political cooperation.

Enclave that is a territorial political extension of another state.

According the UNCLOS, a 200-nautical-mile area extending along a state's coast to which that state has economic rights.

Organizational structure with a central government that shares power with strong regional governments.

Capital city built by a state to achieve a national goal.

State geographically existing in more than one piece, or in fragments.

Region where boundaries are very thinly or weakly developed; zone where territoriality is not well established and is unclear.

Straight line political boundary separating territories that do not relate to cultural or physical features.

Branch of political geography that analyzes how states behave as political and territorial systems.

Redrawing electoral boundaries to give one political party an advantage over others.

The process of establishing political, social, and economic dominance over a colonized area.

Punishments in the form of economic and/or diplomatic limits or even isolation.

Movement to reunite a nation's homeland when part of it extends into another state's borders.

State without coastal access to a body of water.

Conflict over the location or place of a boundary.

Geopolitical theory that Eurasia was the "world island" and the key to dominating the world. Ruling this world island required controlling eastern Europe; linked to the domino theory.

Statement in UNCLOS declaring that when there is not enough water for each country on opposite sides of the sea to have 200 nautical miles of exclusive economic zone, the two or more countries involved will divide the water evenly.

Economic system in which colonies are obtained to supply the colonizer with raw materials to ship back home and use in making products for the population in the mother country

Very small state, such as Singapore.

State with more than one core region.

State with more than one nation within its borders.

Group of people who share a common culture and identify as a cohesive group.

State containing one nation, a cohesive group of people linked to their territory through a shared government and common goals.

Continued economic dependence of new states on their former colonial masters the basic principle of dependency theory.

Multilayered international situation, or landscape, that has existed since the end of the cold war.

Supranational organization formed during the cold war to combat the expansion of communist states.

Conflict over the way a boundary should operate or function, such as the conflict over allowing migration across the border.

Friedrich Ratzel's geopolitical theory that states are living organisms that hunger for land and, like organisms, want to grow larger by acquiring more nourishment in the form of land.

State with a hole punched in it by another state, like South Africa perforated by Lesotho.

Amount of area a person claims as his or her own territory into which others may not enter without permission.

Political boundary that separates territories according to natural features in the landscape, such as mountains, deserts, or rivers.

Study of human political organization of the earth at various geographic levels.

City that is not only the political nucleus but also is many time more economically powerful than any other city in the state.

State with a piece that protrudes from its core area, as an arm juts off from the main body.

Boundary that no longer functions as a boundary but only as a reminder of a line that once divided space.

Nicholas Spykman's theory defining the rimland to be all of Eurasia's periphery, not its core of Russia and Central Asia. This rimland was the key to controlling the world island.

Country controlled by a more powerful state.

Power of a nation to control its own territory and destiny.

State or group of states that exists within a sphere of competition between larger states.

Internationally recognized control of a state over the people and territory within its boundaries.

Political unit with a permanent population, territorial boundaries recognized by other states, an effective government, a working economy, and sovereignty.

Nation without a territory to call its own.

Boundary that grows after significant settlement has occurred, rather than existing before the growth of human cultures, as with an antecedent boundary.

Boundary forcibly put on a landscape by outsiders.

Growing trend of three or more countries forming an alliance for cultural, economic, or military reasons.

Control over a space and the assumption of ownership to that space.

Relationship between a state's geographic shape, size, relative location, and political situation.

Organizational structure in which one main governmental decision-making body exists for the entire state. Regions within the country may have their own local governments, but they are weak and usually serve only as administrative organs of the primary government based in the country's capital.

Supranational organization of nearly 200 member-states bound together to create collective security through diplomatic cooperation.

UN document of agreement among coastal states defining how they should divide the earth's bodies of water.

Supranational organization of communist allies formed during the cold war.

Viewpoint that the situation in one country is directly linked to that country's role in the greater capitalistic system, divided into core states, peripheral states, and semi-peripheral states.