Chapter 4 Study Guide
Chapter 4, Section 1
More than 7 billion people live on Earth, inhabiting about 30
percent of the planet’s land.
Scientists use statistics
to learn about population growth. The
birthrate is the number of births per year for every 1,000 people. The death
rate is the number of deaths per year for every 1,000 people. Natural increase
is the difference between an area’s birthrate and its death rate. Migration
must also be considered when examining population growth. The demographic transition
model uses birthrates and death rates to show changes in population trends of a
country or region. A high birth rate
combined with a low death rate reduces doubling time, the number of years it
takes a population to double in size.
Populations that grow
rapidly use resources more quickly. The
world’s population is unevenly distributed by age, with the majority of some
countries’ populations being infants and young children.
Some countries have
experienced negative population growth, in which the annual death rate exceeds
the birthrate.
Just as the world’s population growth
rate varies among the Earth’s regions, the planet’s population distribution,
the pattern of human settlement, is also uneven. Only about 30 percent of the Earth’s
surface is made up of land. Much of that land is not fit to live on. Almost
everyone on Earth lives on a little less than one-third of the planet’s land. Europe and Asia are the most densely
populated continents.
Where populations are highly
concentrated, many people live in metropolitan areas.
To find out how crowded a place is,
geographers measure population density, which is the total population of a
country divided by its total land area. Two countries with the same number of
people may not have the same population density. For example, Bolivia and the
Dominican Republic have similar populations, but the Dominican Republic has a
smaller land area, and so it is more densely populated than Bolivia. Because the measure of population density
includes all the land area of a country, it does not account for uneven
population distribution within a country.
Many people are moving from city to
city, suburb to suburb, and from rural areas to cities. The growth of city
populations because of migration is called urbanization. When people emigrate from the country of
their birth, they are known as emigrants in their homeland and called
immigrants in their new country. People who flee their country because of wars,
food shortages, or other problems, are called refugees.
Chapter
4, Section 2
Cultures may also include people who
belong to different ethnic groups. Governments maintain
order, provide protection from outside
dangers, and supply other services to people. Governments are organized
according to levels of power and by the type of authority. Geographers look at economic activities to
study how a culture uses natural resources and to analyze the ways in which people
obtain, use, and sell goods and services. Geographers divide the Earth into
culture regions, which include countries.
Culture is the way of life of a group of
people who share similar beliefs and customs. People communicate information
and experiences and pass on cultural values and traditions through language.
Large groups of languages having similar roots are called language families. In
many cultures, religion
enables people to find a sense of
identity. In every culture, members of society fall into various smaller social
groups. In all cultures, the family is the most important group. Most cultures
are also made of social classes that may share similar economic systems, forms
of government, and social groups.
The process of spreading new knowledge
from one culture to another is called cultural diffusion.
The earliest humans were nomads. About
10,000 years ago, many of these nomads became farmers. This shift from
gathering food to producing food is known as the Agricultural Revolution.
By about 3500 B.C., some of these
early farming villages evolved into civilizations.
The world’s first civilizations are
known as culture hearths. The most
influential culture hearths developed in areas that make up the modern
countries of Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, China, and Mexico. Each of these areas started
as farming settlements, and had a mild climate and fertile land. The areas were
each located near a major river or source of water, and the people irrigated the
land and were able to grow surplus crops.
Because more food was available, fewer
people farmed the land. People created new technology and carried out
specialized economic activities that spurred development of long-distance trade.
Wealth from trade led to the rise of cities and complex social systems. The
ruler of a city needed an organized government.
Officials and merchants created
writing systems to record and transmit information. Ideas and practices spread through trade and
travel, and through migration. Migrants often blend their cultures with
those of the people in the migrants’
adopted countries. Cultural diffusion
has increased rapidly during the last 250 years. In the 1700s and 1800s,
industrialized countries began to mass-produce goods, and their economies
changed dramatically. This development, known as the Industrial Revolution, led
to social changes.
At the end of the 1900s, the world experienced
the information revolution. Computers now
make it possible to store huge amounts
of information and send it all over the world instantly, linking cultures of
the world more closely than ever before.
Chapter
4, Section 3
A unitary system of government gives
all key powers to the national or central government. A federal system divides
the powers of government between the national government and state or
provincial governments. Another similar type of government structure is a
confederation, a loose union of independent territories. In an autocracy, such
as a totalitarian dictatorship or a monarchy, the power and authority to rule
belong to a single individual. An oligarchy is any system of government in
which a
small group holds power.
A democracy is any system of
government in which leaders rule with the consent of the citizens. Democratic countries have representative
democracies, in which the people elect representatives. Many democratic
countries, such as the United States and France, are republics, in which voters
elect all major officials. The head of government is usually a president elected
for a specific term. Not every democracy
is a republic. The United Kingdom is a democracy with a monarch as head of
state. This monarch’s role is ceremonial, and elected officials hold the power
to rule. All economic systems make three
basic economic decisions:
(1) what and how many goods and
services should be produced,
(2) how they should be produced,
(3) who gets the goods and services
that are produced.
In a traditional economy, habit and
custom determine them rules for all economic activity. In a market economy, individuals
and private groups make decisions about what to produce. A market economy is
based on free enterprise, the idea that individuals have the right to own property
or businesses and make a profit with only limited government interference.
Another term for an economic system organized this way is capitalism.
A mixed economy is one in which the
government supports and
regulates free enterprise through
decisions that affect the marketplace. The
government works to keep competition fair and to work for the benefit of the
people. A command economy is one in
which the government owns or directs the means of production and controls the
distribution of goods. Countries with command economies try to distribute goods
and services equally among all citizens.
Communism requires strict government
control of almost the entire society, including the economy.
Socialism allows a wider range of free
enterprise alongside government-run activities. The main goals of socialism
are:
(1) equal distribution of wealth and
economic opportunity;
(2) society’s control of all major
decisions about production; and
(3) public ownership of most land,
factories, and other means of production. Some socialist countries, like those
in Western Europe, are democracies. Under democratic socialism, people elect
their political leaders.
Chapter
4, Section 4
Elements from the Earth that are not
made by people but can be used by them for food, fuel, or other necessities are
called natural resources. Renewable resources cannot be used up or can be
replaced naturally or grown again in a relatively short amount of time.
Nonrenewable resources, such as minerals and fossil fuels, cannot be replaced. Because
fossil fuels and other nonrenewable resources cannot
be replaced, they must be conserved.
Environment experts have encouraged people to replace their dependence on
fossil fuels with the use of renewable energy resources including hydroelectric
power, solar energy, and nuclear
energy.
Primary economic activities involve
taking or using natural resources directly from the Earth. Secondary economic
activities use raw materials to produce something new and more valuable.
Tertiary economic activities provide
services to people and businesses. Quaternary economic activities are concerned
with the processing, management, and distribution of information.
Economic activities, including
industrialization, or the spread of industry, influence a country’s level of
development. Countries with much
technology and manufacturing are called developed countries. Newly
industrialized countries have moved from primarily agricultural to primarily
manufacturing
and industrial activities. Countries
working toward greater manufacturing and technology activities are called
developing countries.
The unequal distribution of natural
resources and differing labor costs and education levels promote a complex
network of trade among countries. Some governments add barriers to trade to
help their own
economy. Barriers may include adding a
tariff, or tax, to the price of imported goods, putting a quota, or number
limit on importing a particular product from a particular country, or imposing
an embargo, banning trade with another country altogether.
Free trade is the removal of trade barriers
so that goods can flow freely among countries.
Pollution is the release of unclean or
impure elements into the air, water, and land.
Earth’s bodies of water normally renew themselves, but can be polluted
when oil tankers and offshore drilling rigs cause oil spills; when chemical
waste enters the water supply; and when fertilizers and pesticides seep into
groundwater.
Land pollution occurs when chemical
waste poisons topsoil, or when solid waste is dumped in
landfills. Radioactive waste and toxic
runoff can also leak into the soil.
The main source of air pollution is
the burning of fossil fuels. Burning
fuel gives off poisonous gases. Acidic chemicals in air pollution also combine
with precipitation to form acid rain. When forests
are destroyed by acid rain, less
oxygen is produced by photosynthesis. As
humans expand their communities, they threaten natural ecosystems. Because the
Earth’s land, air, and water are interrelated,
what harms one part
of the system harms all the other parts.
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