Glossary - Human Geography: People, Place and Culture - page 502

Gendered In terms of a place, whether the place is designed for or
claimed by men or women.
Genetic or inherited diseases Diseases caused by variation or muta-
tion of a gene or group of genes in a human.
Genetically Modifi ed Oganisms (GMOs) Crops that carry new
traits that have been inserted through advanced genetic engineering
methods.
Gentrifi cation The rehabilitation of deteriorated, often abandoned,
housing of low-income inner-city residents.
Geocaching A hunt for a cache, the Global Positioning System
(GPS) coordinates which are placed on the Internet by other geocachers.
Geographic concept Ways of seeing the world spatially that are used
by geographers in answering research questions.
Geographic Information System (GIS) A collection of computer
hardware and software that permits spatial data to be collected, recorded,
stored, retrieved, manipulated, analyzed, and displayed to the user.
Geography From the Greek meaning “to write about the Earth.” As
a modern academic discipline, geography is concerned with the analysis
of the physical and human characteristics of the Earth's surface from a
spatial perspective. “Why are things located where they are?” and “What
does it mean for things to be located in pa

caused by ever-increasing amounts of carbon dioxide produced by vari-
ous human activities.
Globalization The expansion of economic, political, and cultural
processes to the point that they become global in scale and impact. The
processes of globalization transcend state boundaries and have outcomes
that vary across places and scales.
Glocalization The process by which people in a local place mediate
and alter regional, national, and global processes.
Gondwana The southern portion of the primeval supercontinent,
Pangaea.
Gravity model A mathematical prediction of the interaction of places,
the interaction being a function of population size of the respective
places and the distance between them.
Green Revolution The recently successful development of higher-
yield, fast-growing varieties of rice and other cereals in certain developing
countries, which led to increased production per unit area and a dramatic
narrowing of the gap between population growth and food needs.
Greenhouse effect The widely used analogy describing the blan-
ket-like effect of the atmosphere in the heating of the Earth's surface;
shortwave insolation passes through the “glass” of the atmospheric
“greenhouse,” heats the surface, is converted to long-wave radiation that
cannot penetrate the “glass,” and thereby results in trapping heat, which
raises the temperature inside the “greenhouse.”
Griffi n-Ford model Developed by geographers Ernst Griffi n and
Larry Ford, a model of the Latin American city showing a blend of tra-
ditional elements of Latin American culture with the forces of globaliza-
tion that are reshaping the urban scene.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) The total value of all goods and
services produced within a country during a given year.
Gross National Product (GNP) The total value of all goods and ser-
vices produced by a country's economy in a given year. It includes all
goods and services produced by corporations and individuals of a coun-
try, whether or not they are located within the country.
Guest worker Legal immigrant who has a work visa, usually short term.
Hajj The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad.
Hearth The area where an idea or cultural trait originates.
Heartland theory A geopolitical hypothesis, proposed by British geog-
rapher Halford Mackinder during the fi rst two decades of the twentieth
century, that any political power based in the heart of Eurasia could gain
suffi cient strength to eventually dominate the world. Mackinder further
proposed that since Eastern Europe controlled access to the Eurasian inte-
rior, its ruler would command the vast “heartland” to the east.
Hierarchical diffusion A form of diffusion in which an idea or in-
novation spreads by passing fi rst among the most connected places or
peoples. An urban hierarchy is usually involved, encouraging the leap-
frogging of innovations over wide areas, with geographic distance a less
important infl uence.
High-technology corridors Areas along or near major transporta-
tion arteries that are devoted to the research, development, and sale of
high-technology products. These areas develop because of the network-
ing and synergistic advantages of concentrating high-technology en-
terprises in close proximity to one another. “Silicon Valley” is a prime
example of a high-technology corridor in the United States.
Hinduism One of the oldest religions in the modern world, dating
back over 4000 years, and originating in the Indus River Valley of what is
today part of Pakistan. Hinduism is unique among the world's religions
in that it does not have a single founder, a single theology, or agreement
on its origins.
Hinterland Literally, “country behind,” a term that applies to a sur-
rounding area served by an urban center. That center is the focus of
goods and services produced for its hinterland and is its dominant urban

rticular places?” are central
questions that geographical scholarship seeks to answer.
Geography Educational National Implementation Project
(GENIP) Joint effort undertaken in the 1980s by the American
Geographical Society, the Association of American Geographers, the
National Council for Geographic Education and the National Geographic
Society designed to bring together the many subfi elds of human geography
and to explain to nongeographers the discipline of geography; developed
the fi ve themes of geography: location, human-environment, region,
place , and movement .
Geometric boundary Political boundary defi ned and delimited (and
occasionally demarcated ) as a straight line or an arc.
Germanic languages Languages (English, German, Danish,
Norwegian, and Swedish) that refl ect the expansion of peoples out of
Northern Europe to the west and south.
Gerrymandering Redistricting for advantage, or the practice of di-
viding areas into electoral districts to give one political party an electoral
majority in a large number of districts while concentrating the voting
strength of the opposition in as few districts as possible.
Glaciation A period of global cooling during which continental ice
sheets and mountain glaciers expand.
Global division of labor Phenomenon whereby corporations and
others can draw from labor markets around the world, made possible by
the compression of time and space through innovation in communica-
tion and transportation systems.
Global language The language used most commonly around the
world; defi ned on the basis of either the number of speakers of the lan-
guage, or prevalence of use in commerce and trade.
Global-local continuum The notion that what happens at the global
scale has a direct effect on what happens at the local scale, and vice versa.
This idea posits that the world is comprised of an interconnected series
of relationships that extend across space.
Global Positioning System (GPS) Satellite-based system for deter-
mining the absolute location of places or geographic features.
Global scale Interactions occurring at the scale of the world, in a
global setting.
Global-scale migration migration that takes place across interna-
tional boundaries and between world regions.
Global warming Theory that the Earth is gradually warming as a
result of an enhanced greenhouse effect in the Earth's atmosphere