Chapter 4 Study Guide for Apollo Team

Chapter 4 Study Guide for Apollo Team

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.