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  • Glossary Of Geography

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      Absolute Humidity


      Accessibility Resource
      A naturally occurring landscape feature that facilitates interaction between places.

      Acid Rain

      Air Mass

      Height of an object in the atmosphere above sea level.


      Alluvial Soils

      Before the war; in the United States, belonging to the period immediately prior to the Civil War (1861-1865).

      A hard coal containing little volatile matter.



      A bound collection of maps.



      Base Level



      The ability to use either one of two languages, especially when speaking.

      Biological Diversity


      A soft coal that, when heated, yields considerable volatile matter.

      Boll Weevil
      A small, greyish beetle of the southeastern United States with destructive larvae that hatch in and damage cotton bolls.

      Break-in-Bulk Point
      Commonly, a transfer point on a transport route where the mode of transport (or type of carrier) changes and where large-volume shipments are reduced in size. For example, goods may be unloaded from a ship and transferred to trucks at an ocean port.





      Carrying Capacity
      The number of people that an area can support given the quality of the natural environment and the level of technology of the population.

      A person who draws or makes maps or charts.


      A dense, impenetrable thicket of shrubs or dwarf trees.


      Climax Vegetation


      Bearing cones; from the conifer family.


      Continental Climate

      Continental Divide

      The quality or state of being a continent.



      Core Area
      The portion of a country that contains its economic, political, intellectual, and cultural focus. It is often the center of creativity and change (see Hearth).

      Crop-lien System
      A farm financing scheme whereby money is loaned at the beginning of a growing season to pay for farming operations, with the subsequent harvest used as collateral for the loan.


      Culture Hearth
      The area from which the culture of a group diffused (see Hearth).

      Cut-and-Sew Industry
      The manufacture of basic ready-to-wear clothing. Such facilities usually have a small fixed investment in the manufacturing facility.


      Deciduous Forest
      Forests in which the trees lose their leaves each year.

      De Facto Segregation


      Degree Day
      Deviation of one degree temperature for one day from an arbitrary standard, usually the long-term average temperature for a place.

      De Jure Segregation
      The spatial and social separation of populations that occurs as a consequence of legal measures.

      The systematic analysis of population.

      Discriminatory Shipping Rates
      A transportation charge levied in a manner that is inequitable to some shippers, primarily because of those shippers' location.


      Dry Farming


      Economies of Agglomeration

      Economies of Scale


      Emergent Coastline

      A tract or territory enclosed within another state or country.

      A boulder that has been carried from its source by a glacier and deposited as the glacier melted. Thus, the boulder is often of a different rock type from surrounding types.


      The broad lower course of a river that is encroached on by the sea and affected by the tides.

      The water lost from an area through the combined effects of evaporation from the ground surface and transpiration from the vegetation.

      Exotic Stream

      Extended Family
      A family that includes three or more generations. Normally, that would include grandparents, their sons or daughters, and their children, as opposed to a "nuclear family," which is only a married couple and their offspring.

      A region or district that lies outside a city and usually beyond its suburbs.



      Fall Line
      The physiographic border between the piedmont and coastal plain regions. The name derives from the river rapids and falls that occur as the water flows from hard rocks of the higher piedmont onto the softer rocks of the coastal plain.



      Fault Block Mountain
      A mountain mass created either by the uplift of land between faults or the subsidence of land outside the faults.

      Fault Zone
      A fracture in the Earth's crust along which movement has occurred. The movement may be in any direction and involve material on either or both sides of the fracture. A "fault zone" is an area of numerous fractures.


      Feral Animal
      A wild or untamed animal, especially one having reverted to such a state from domestication.

      Fish Ladder
      A series of shallow steps down which water is allowed to flow; designed to permit salmon to circumvent artificial barriers such as power dams as the salmon swim upstream to spawn.

      The characteristic of a place that follows from its interconnections with more than one other place. When interaction within a region comes together at a place (i.e., when the movement focuses on that location), the place is said to possess "focality."

      Functional Diversity
      The characteristic of a place where a variety of different activities (economic, political, social) occur; most often associated with urban places.



      Originally, the section of a European city to which Jews were restricted. Today, commonly defined as a section of a city occupied by members of a minority group who live there because of social restrictions on their residential choice.

      Glacial Till
      The mass of rocks and finely ground material carried by a glacier, then deposited when the ice melted. Creates an unstratified material of varying composition.

      Having been covered with a glacier or subject to glacial epochs.


      Great Circle Route
      The shortest distance between two places on the Earth's surface. The route follows a line described by the intersection of the surface with an imaginary plane passing through the Earth's center.


      Growing Season
      The period from the average date of the last frost (in the United States, this occurs in the spring) to the first frost in the fall.


      Heavy Industry
      Manufacturing activities engaged in the conversion of large volumes of raw materials and partially processed materials into products of higher value; hallmarks of this form of industry are considerable capital investment in large machinery, heavy energy consumption, and final products of relatively low value per unit weight (see Light Industry).

      Half of the Earth, usually conceived as resulting from the division of the globe into two equal parts'north and south or east and west.

      The area tributary to a place and linked to that place through lines of exchange, or interaction.

      A distinct layer of soil encountered in vertical section.

      Partially decomposed organic soil material.

      The study of the surface waters of the Earth.

      The growing of plants, especially vegetables, in water containing essential mineral nutrients rather than in soil.


      international date line

      Ice Age
      A time of widespread glaciation (see Pleistocene).

      Igneous Rock
      Rock formed when molten (melted) materials harden.

      Indentured Labor
      Work performed according to a binding contract between two parties. During the early colonial period in America, this often involved long periods of time and a total work commitment.

      A plant that yields a blue vat dye.

      Inertia Costs of Location

      Either of an island, or suggestive of the isolated condition of an island.

      Intervening Opportunity

      Intracoastal Waterway System
      A waterway channel, maintained through dredging and sheltered for the most part by a series of linear offshore islands, that extends from New York City to Florida's southern tip and from Brownsville, Texas, to the eastern end of Florida's panhandle.

      A line on a map connecting points that receive equal precipitation.


      The right and power to apply the law; the territorial range of legal authority or control.



      A vine, native to China and Japan but imported into the United States; originally planted for decoration, for forage, or as a ground cover to control erosion. It now grows wild in many parts of the southeastern United States.


      Lacustrine Plain
      A nearly level land area that was formed as a lake bed.

      A measure of distance north or south of the equator. One degree of latitude equals approximately 110 kilometers (69 miles).




      Life Cycle Stage

      Light Industry
      Manufacturing activities that use moderate amounts of partially processed materials to produce items of relatively high value per unit weight (see Heavy Industry).

      A low-grade brownish coal of relatively poor heat-generating capacity.



      A measure of distance east and west of a line drawn between the North and South Poles and passing through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.



      Maritime Climate

      Mediterranean Climate
      A climate characterized by moist, mild winters and hot, dry summers.


      A spiny deep-rooted leguminous tree or shrub that forms extensive thickets in the southwestern United States.

      Metamorphic Rock

      Metes and Bounds

      Metropolitan Coalescence

      An isolated hill or mountain of resistant rock rising above an eroded lowland.


      The ability to use more than one language when speaking or writing (see Bilingual). This term often refers to the presence of more than two populations of significant size within a single political unit, each group speaking a different language as their primary language.

      Municipal Waste
      Unwanted by-products of modern life generated by people living in an urban area.


      Nodal Region

      New England
      The northeastern United States.

      Nuclear Family
      See Extended Family.



      Open Range
      A cattle- or sheep-ranching area characterized by a general absence of fences.

      Orographic Rainfall
      Precipitation that results when moist air is lifted over a topographic barrier such as a mountain range.

      Rocky and sandy surface material deposited by meltwater that flowed from a glacier.



      A line of bold cliffs.

      A narrow projection of a larger territory (as a state).

      A permanently frozen layer of soil.

      Physiographic Region

      Physical geography.

      Lying or formed at the base of mountains; in the United States, an area in the southern states at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

      Plural Society

      Plate Tectonics

      Platted Land
      Land that has been divided into surveyed lots.




      Precambrian Rock
      The oldest rocks, generally more than 600 million years old.

      A military post (Spanish).

      prime meridian

      Primary Product
      A product that is important as a raw material in developed economies; a product consumed in its primary (i.e., unprocessed) state (see Staple Product).

      Primary Sector

      A type of Indian village constructed by some tribes in the southwestern United States. A large community dwelling, divided into many rooms, up to five stories high, and usually made of adobe. Also, a Spanish word for town or village.


      Quaternary Sector
      That portion of a region's economy devoted to informational and idea-generating activities (e.g., basic research, universities and colleges, and news media).


      Rail Gauge
      The distance between the two rails of a railroad.


      An area having some characteristic or characteristics that distinguish it from other areas. A territory of interest to people and for which one or more distinctive traits are used as the basis for its identity.

      Anything that is both naturally occurring and of use to humans.

      Riparian Rights

      Located on or inhabiting the banks or the area near a river or lake.



      Also "escarpment." A steep cliff or steep slope, formed either as a result of faulting or by the erosion of inclined rock strata.

      The North American descendants of Protestants from Scotland who migrated to northern Ireland in the 1600s.

      sea level
      The ocean surface.

      Secondary Sector

      Second Home

      Sedimentary Rock

      A form of agricultural tenancy in which the tenant pays for use of the land with a predetermined share of his crop rather than with a cash rent.

      A broad area of very old rocks above sea level. Usually characterized by thin, poor soils and low population densities.

      Fodder (livestock feed) prepared by storing and fermenting green forage plants in a silo.

      Usually a tall, cylindrical structure in which fodder (animal feed) is stored; may be a pit dug for the same purpose.

      Crater formed when the roof of a cavern collapses; usually found in areas of limestone rock.

      Features of a place related to the immediate environment on which the place is located (e.g., terrain, soil, subsurface, geology, ground water).



      SMSA - Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area

      Capable of being dissolved; in this case, the characteristic of soil minerals that leads them to be carried away in solution by water (see Leaching).

      Space Economy
      The locational pattern of economic activities and their interconnecting linkages.

      Spatial Complementarity

      Spatial Interaction
      Movement between locationally separate places.

      Staple Product
      A product that becomes a major component in trade because it is in steady demand; thus, a product that is basic to the economies of one or more major consuming populations (see Primary Product).

      Sustainable Yield
      The amount of a naturally self-reproducing community, such as trees or fish, that can be harvested without diminishing the ability of the community to sustain itself.



      Temperature Inversion

      A specific area or portion of the Earth's surface; not to be confused with region.

      Tertiary Sector
      That portion of a region's economy devoted to service activities (e.g., transportation, retail and wholesale operations, insurance).

      The minimum-sized market for an economic activity. The activity will not be successful until it can reach a population larger than this threshold size.

      Time difference and Time Zones
      Consequently, different areas of the world ("time zones") start and end their counting of the daily hours sooner or later than others.



      Township and Range
      The rectangular system of land subdivision of much of the agriculturally settled United States west of the Appalachian Mountains; established by the Land Ordinance of 1785.



      Tree Line
      Either the latitudinal or elevational limit of normal tree growth. Beyond this limit, closer to the poles or at higher or lower elevations, climatic conditions are too severe for such growth.

      Technically, the area between the Tropic of Cancer (21-1/2 N latitude) and the Tropic of Capricorn (21-1/2 S latitude), characterized by the absence of a cold season. Often used to describe any area possessing what is considered to be a hot, humid climate.

      A treeless plain characteristic of the arctic and subarctic regions.


      A condition among a labor force such that a portion of the labor force could be eliminated without reducing the total output. Some individuals are working less than they are able or want to, or they are engaged in tasks that are not entirely productive.

      Economically, a situation in which an increase in the size of the labor force will result in an increase in per worker productivity.

      Uniform Region
      A territory with one or more features present throughout and absent or unimportant elsewhere.



      Water Table




      Zoning The public regulation of land and building use to control the character of a place.

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    Revised 14-January-1999
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