APHG Review Unit 3: Cultural Geography

Key Terms

Acculturation The adoption of cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another.

Animism Most prevalent in Africa and the Americas, doctrine in which the world is seen as being infused with spiritual and even supernatural powers.

Artifact Any item that represents a material aspect of culture.

Buddhism System of belief that seeks to explain ultimate realities for all people such as the nature of suffering and the path toward self-realization.

Caste System System in India that gives every Indian a particular place in the social hierarchy from birth.

Christianity The world’s most widespread religion. This is a monotheistic, universal religion that uses missionaries to expand its members worldwide. The three major categories are Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox.

Creole A pidgin language that evolves to the point at which it becomes the primary language of the people who speak it.

Cultural Complex The group of traits that define a particular culture.

Cultural Extinction Obliteration of an entire culture by war, disease, acculturation, or a combination of the three.

Cultural Geography The subfield of human geography that looks at how cultures vary over space.

Cultural Hearth Locations on earth’s surface where specific cultures first arose.

Cultural Imperialism The dominance of one culture over another.

Cultural Trait The specific customs that are part of the everyday life of a particular culture, such as language, religion, ethnicity, social institutions, and aspects of popular culture.

Culture A total way of life held in common by a group of people, including learned features such as language, ideology, behavior, technology, and government.

Custom Practices followed by the people of a particular cultural group.

Denomination A particular religious group, usually associated with differing Protestant belief systems.

Dialect Geographically distinct versions of a single language that vary somewhat from the parent form.

Diaspora People who come from a common ethnic background but who live in different regions outside of the home of their ethnicity.

Ecumene The proportion of the earth inhabited by humans.

Environmental Determinism A doctrine that claims that cultural traits are formed and controlled by environmental conditions.

Esperanto A constructed international auxiliary language incorporating aspects of numerous linguistic traditions to create a universal means of communication.

Ethnic Cleansing The systematic attempt to remove all people of a particular ethnicity from a country or region either by forced migration or genocide.

Ethnic Neighborhood An area within a city containing members of the same ethnic background.

Ethnic Religion Religion that is identified with a particular ethnic or tribal group and that does not seek new converts.

Ethnicity Refers to a group of people who share a common identity.

Evangelical Religions Religion in which an effort is made to spread a particular belief system.

Folk Culture Refers to constellation of cultural practices that form the sights, smells, sounds, and rituals of everyday existence in the traditional societies in which they developed.

Fundamentalism The strict adherence to a particular doctrine.

Gender Inequality Index (GII) A United Nations index, introduced in 2010, which measures a country’s loss of achievement due to its sexual inequality, based on reproductive health, employment, and general empowerment.

Genocide A premeditated effort to kill everyone from a particular ethnic group.

Ghetto A segregated ethnic area within a city.

Global Religion Religion in which members are numerous and widespread and their doctrines might appeal to different people from any region of the globe.

Hinduism A cohesive and unique society, most prevalent in India, that integrates spiritual beliefs with daily practices and official institutions such as the caste system.

Indo-European family Language family including the Germanic and Romance languages that is spoken by about 50% of the world’s people.

Islam A monotheistic religion based on the belief that there is one God, Allah, and that Muhammad was Allah’s prophet. It is based in the ancient city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Muhammad.

Isogloss Geographical boundary lines where different linguistic features meet.

Judaism The first major monotheistic religion. It is based on a sense of ethnic identity, and its adherents tend to form tight-knit communities wherever they live.

Language Extinction This occurs when a language is no longer in use by any living people. This has happened to thousands of languages over the eons since language first developed, but this process has accelerated greatly during the past 300 years.

Language Family A collection of many languages, all of which came from the same original tongue long ago, that have since evolved different characteristics.

Language Group A set of languages with a relatively recent common origin and many similar characteristics.

Lingua Franca An extremely simple language that combines aspects of two or more other, more-complex languages usually used for quick and efficient communication.

Literacy The ability to read and write.

Local Culture A set of common experiences or customs that shapes the identity of a place and the people who live there. Local cultures are often the subjects of preservation or economic development efforts.

Local Religion Religions that are spiritually bound to particular regions.

Minority A racial or ethnic group smaller than and differing from the majority race or ethnicity in a particular area or region.

Missionary A person of a particular faith that travels in order to recruit new members into the faith represented.

Monotheism The worship of only one god.

Multicultural Having to do with many cultures.

Official Language Language in which all government business occurs in a country.

Pidgin Language that may develop when two groups of people with different languages meet, the resulting language will have some characteristics of each language.

Pilgrimage A journey to a place of religious importance.

Polyglot A multilingual state.

Polytheism The worship of more than one god.

Popular Culture (Pop Culture) 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, and producing and consuming machine-made goods.

Race A group of human beings distinguished by physical traits, blood types, genetic code patterns or genetically inherited characteristics.

Romance Languages Any of the languages derived from Latin including Italian, Spanish, French, and Romanian.

Shaman The single person who takes on the roles of priest, counselor, and physician and acts as a conduit to the supernatural world in tribal cultures.

Sino-Tibetan Family Language area that spreads through most of Southeast Asia and China and is comprised of Chinese, Burmese, Tibetan, Japanese, and Korean.

Syncretic Traditions that borrow from both the past and present.

Toponym Place names given to certain features on the land such as settlements, terrain features, and streams.

Tradition A cohesive collection of customs with a cultural group.

Transculturation The expansion of cultural traits through diffusion, adoption, and other related processes.

Universalizing Religion Religion that seeks to unite people from all over the globe.

Multiple Choice Questions

Section 1: Cultural Basics 1. Cultural Geography is the study of A. global customs and artifacts. B. cultural complexes. C. the spatial distribution of cultural traits. D. human-environment relationships. E. how cultures change through time.

Section 1: Cultural Basics 2. Throughout history, numerous colonial powers have argued that certain types of people, living in certain areas of the world, are less able to govern themselves because of the qualities they have developed due to their interactions with natural factors, such as climate. This is an example of A. environmental determinism. B. cultural ecology. C. possibilism. D. ecumenism. E. positivism.

Section 1: Cultural Basics 3. Cultural traditions, such as Christmas, are ______ since they borrow from the past and are continually reinvented in the present. A. erratic B. inauthentic C. complex D. syncretic E. ecumenical

Section 1: Cultural Basics 4. The cultural hearth of Christianity is in A. New York. B. Rome. C. Israel. D. South Carolina. E. Turkey.

Section 1: Cultural Basics 5. Wooden shoes characteristic of the Dutch culture are an example of a(n) A. mentifact. B. artifact. C. custom. D. syncretism. E. complex.

Section 2: Language 1. The most widespread language family on earth is the A. Sino-Tibetan. B. Romance. C. Germanic. D. Indo-European. E. Mandarin Chinese.

Section 2: Language 2. People in London, Melbourne, Vancouver, and Mumbai all speak A. a pidgin language. B. lingua francas. C. different dialects. D. official languages. E. different creoles.

Section 2: Language 3. Acculturation is a common cause of A. illiteracy. B. language extinction. C. assimilation. D. creolization. E. cultural diffusion.

Section 2: Language 4. A simple trade language is called a A. lingua franca. B. pidgin. C. dialect. D. creole. E. syncretic.

Section 2: Language 5. Literacy rates vary by A. sex. B. location. C. education. D. economic development. E. all of the above

Section 3: Religion 1. All evangelical religions are also A. local religions. B. universal religions. C. animist religions. D. ethnic religions. E. polytheistic religions.

Section 3: Religion 2. Local Native American and African religions that teach a belief in a natural world full of spiritual beings and supernatural powers are often referred to as A. animist. B. shamanistic. C. missionary. D. denominational. E. local religions.

Section 3: Religion 3. The world’s most widespread religion is A. Islam. B. Animism. C. Christianity. D. Hinduism. E. Buddhism.

Section 3: Religion 4. The hearth and spiritual center of Islam is at A. Baghdad. B. Cairo. C. Jakarta. D. Mecca. E. Jerusalem.

Section 3: Religion 5. _____ is an excellent example of a nonevangelical, universalizing religion. A. Christianity B. Buddhism C. Protestantism D. Polytheism E. Hinduism

Section 3: Religion 6. In _____ religions, community, common history, and social relations are inextricably intertwined with spiritual beliefs. A. monotheistic B. local C. evangelical D. ethnic E. universal

Sections 4 & 5: Ethnicity and Popular Culture 1. An ethnicity is defined as A. a group of people with a common history. B. a group of people with similar physical characteristics. C. a group of people who share a common identity. D. a group of people united against a common enemy. E. a group of people with a similar religion.

Sections 4 & 5: Ethnicity and Popular Culture 2. In the 1990’s the United States A. became less ethnically diverse. B. decreased in overall population. C. saw few changes in its ethnic composition. D. saw dramatic changes in its ethnic E. remained relatively homogeneous in its ethnic makeup.

Sections 4 & 5: Ethnicity and Popular Culture 3. A group of people, all of the same ethnicity, live in the same area of a city near a nuclear waste facility. This is an example of a(n) A. diaspora. B. ghetto. C. cultural landscape. D. ethnic neighborhood. E. gentrified neighborhood.

Sections 4 & 5: Ethnicity and Popular Culture 4. Which is the most characteristic statement of a folk culture? A. They look virtually the same anywhere on the globe. B. Individuals within the culture specialize in producing specific goods for the community. C. They quickly adopt new technologies useful for their community. D. They have a subsistence economy. E. They have weak ties to friends and family.

Free Response Questions

Section 1: Cultural Basics 1. Consider the impacts of colonialism on the world’s cultural geography. Explain how colonialism affected global patterns of language and religion, using specific examples to support your argument.

Section 2: Language 1. Language extinction, both currently and throughout history, has been a major concern for cultural geographers, linguists, anthropologists, and other academics. A. What are some of the cause of language extinction? B. What kind of repercussions exist as a result of the loss of linguistic diversity? C. Discuss some current trends to revive endangered or extinct languages around the world.

Section 3: Religions 1. Religions exhibit several different patterns for diffusing across the globe. A. Describe the major diffusion mechanisms for two dominant world religions: Buddhism and Christianity. B. How has the difference between how these two religions are spread affected the current distribution of these two religions traditions?

Section 4: Ethnicity and Popular Culture 1. Geographers use the term “cultural imperialism” to describe a trend especially dominant in our current global society. A. What is cultural imperialism? B. Describe three global effects of the spread of Western popular culture to the rest of the world.