MAP TYPES & PROJECTIONS
SPATIAL CONCEPTS
GEOGRAPHIC DATA
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
REGIONS & SCALE
100
Shows boundaries, cities, and physical features — the general-purpose map you find in an atlas.
What is a reference map (political or physical)? MC TIP — Reference maps show WHERE. Thematic maps show DATA. That one split answers most Unit 1 map questions.
100
Latitude and longitude coordinates give you this kind of location.
What is absolute location? MC TIP — Absolute is fixed and mathematical. Relative location is described through other places and changes as connections change.
100
The computer system that layers spatial data to capture, analyze, and display it.
What is GIS (Geographic Information Systems)? MC TIP — GIS ANALYZES and layers. GPS LOCATES. Remote sensing COLLECTS from a distance. Three different verbs.
100
The idea that humans can and do alter the physical environment to meet their needs.
What is possibilism? MC TIP — Possibilism is the accepted view: the environment sets limits, humans choose within them.
100
A region defined by one or more shared uniform characteristics, like the Corn Belt.
What is a formal (uniform) region? MC TIP — Formal = measurable and uniform. Functional = organized around a node. Perceptual = it lives in people's heads.
200
A thematic map that uses color shading to show a rate or density inside set units like counties or states.
What is a choropleth map? MC TIP — Choropleth requires NORMALIZED data — a rate, percent, or density. A choropleth of raw totals is a wrong answer.
200
The physical characteristics of a place itself — its climate, soil, elevation, and resources.
What is site? MC TIP — Site = what is THERE. Situation = where it sits relative to everything else. Situation is why a city becomes a trade hub.
200
Collecting data about Earth's surface from satellites or aircraft, without physical contact.
What is remote sensing? MC TIP — Remote sensing is how deforestation, land-cover change, and urban sprawl get measured over time.
200
The discredited theory that the physical environment determines culture and human behavior.
What is environmental determinism? MC TIP — Determinism is the WRONG answer about people but the RIGHT answer when a stem asks what early-1900s geographers believed or why the idea was rejected.
200
A region organized around a focal point, like a pizza delivery zone or a newspaper circulation area.
What is a functional (nodal) region? MC TIP — Functional regions weaken as you move from the node — that is distance decay drawn on a map.
300
Keeps direction and shape true for navigation but massively inflates area near the poles.
What is the Mercator projection? MC TIP — Every projection distorts shape, area, distance, or direction. Name the PURPOSE and the distortion follows.
300
The principle that nearer things are more related than distant things.
What is Tobler's First Law of Geography (distance decay)? MC TIP — Distance decay predicts interaction FALLS with distance. Time-space compression is the force weakening it.
300
The every-ten-years count of the U.S. population that drives congressional apportionment and federal funding.
What is the census? MC TIP — Census data is QUANTITATIVE and the classic government-collected example. Interviews, field observation, and photographs are QUALITATIVE.
300
Meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.
What is sustainability? MC TIP — Sustainability questions pair an economic benefit against an environmental cost. The credited answer names both.
300
The American South and the Middle East are best classified as this region type, because the boundaries depend on who you ask.
What is a perceptual (vernacular) region? MC TIP — If the stem says commonly thought of or informally known as, it is perceptual.
400
Robinson is the classic example of this projection type, which distorts a little of everything rather than preserving any one property.
What is a compromise projection? MC TIP — Goode's homolosine interrupts the oceans to preserve area; Gall-Peters preserves area and stretches shape; Robinson compromises. Know the trade-off, not the picture.
400
The spread of an idea or disease through direct person-to-person contact.
What is contagious diffusion? MC TIP — The diffusion family is the most tested Unit 1 concept. Relocation = people MOVE. Expansion = the source stays put: contagious (contact), hierarchical (big nodes down), stimulus (idea survives, form changes).
400
Interviews, field notes, photographs, and landscape observation — data that captures meaning rather than counts.
What is qualitative data? MC TIP — When a question asks WHY people feel or behave a certain way, the method is qualitative. HOW MANY or WHAT RATE is quantitative.
400
Terracing, irrigation, deforestation, and levee construction all belong to this broad category of human action.
What is environmental modification? MC TIP — The credited answer names the modification AND an unintended consequence — a levee stops flooding upstream and worsens it downstream.
400
Examining a pattern at the global, national, regional, and local level — the analytical move that changes what the data appears to say.
What is scale of analysis? MC TIP — The classic trap: a pattern true at one scale reverses at another. A country can be wealthy nationally while its rural regions are poor.
500
Each country is redrawn in proportion to its data value, so shape is deliberately sacrificed to show magnitude.
What is a cartogram? MC TIP — Cartogram, graduated symbol, and dot maps show MAGNITUDE; choropleth shows RATE. A stem asking about total number points to the first three.
500
The shrinking of perceived distance between places as transportation and communication technology improve.
What is time-space compression? MC TIP — Compression does NOT reach everyone equally. Connected core cities compress; remote peripheral areas stay far away. A stem claiming all places is a trap.
500
Volunteered, user-generated spatial data — crowd-sourced traffic reports or OpenStreetMap edits.
What is crowdsourcing (volunteered geographic information)? MC TIP — Strength: speed and local detail. Weakness: uneven coverage and no quality control. Both sides get tested.
500
The total land and water area required to produce what a population consumes and absorb its waste.
What is the ecological footprint? MC TIP — Footprint scales with CONSUMPTION, not population size alone. A small wealthy country can out-footprint a large poor one — a favorite stem.
500
The ratio of map distance to ground distance — and the reason a map of a whole continent shows little detail.
What is map (cartographic) scale? MC TIP — Small scale = big area, few details. Large scale = small area, lots of detail. It feels backwards, and AP counts on you getting it backwards.
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