AP Human Geography Unit 7: Industrial and Economic Development Patterns and Processes

With so much information to learn and retain as you study for the AP Human Geography Exam, it’s important to review effectively. To help you organize your studies, we’ve provided concise summaries and key terms for each AP Human Geography unit. Read on for our AP Human Geography Unit 7 summary and key terms. 

AP Human Geography: Unit 7 Summary

Economic geography is the study of the flow of goods and services through space. Economic geographers also study the ways in which people provide for themselves in different places and geographic patterns of inequality at all scales of economic organization. Historically, economic geographers have been profoundly influenced by classical economic theory and capitalism. More recently, the opening of markets and the international character of economic flows, in general, have caused many economic geographers to focus more on international economic alliances, cycles of industrialization, poverty, globalization, and development. In this chapter, you looked at multiple geographic scales in an attempt to better understand this extremely diverse and wide-ranging field.

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AP Human Geography: Unit 7 Key Terms

• Agglomeration: Grouping together of many firms from the same industry in a single area for collective or cooperative use of infrastructure and sharing of labor resources. 
• Ancillary activities: Economic activities that surround and support large-scale industries such as shipping and food service. 
• Backwash effects: The negative effects on one region that result from economic growth within another region. 
• Break-bulk point: A location where large shipments of goods are broken up into smaller containers for delivery to local markets. 
• Brick-and-mortar businesses: Traditional businesses with actual stores in which trade or retail occurs; they do not exist solely on the internet. 
• Bulk-gaining industries: Industries whose products weigh more after assembly than they did previously in their constituent parts. Such industries tend to have production facilities close to their markets. 
• Bulk-reducing industries: Industries whose final products weigh less than their constituent parts, and whose processing facilities tend to be located close to sources of raw materials. 
• Commodity dependence: When peripheral economies rely too heavily on the export of raw materials, which places them on unequal terms of exchange with more-developed countries that export higher-value goods. 
• Conglomerate corporation: A firm comprising many smaller firms that serve several different functions. 
• Core: National or global regions where economic power, in terms of wealth, innovation, and advanced technology, is concentrated. 
• Core-Periphery Model: A model of the spatial structure of development in which under- developed countries are defined by their dependence on a developed core region. 
• Cottage industry: An industry in which the production of goods and services is based in homes, as opposed to factories. 
• Deglomeration: The dispersal of an industry that formerly existed in an established agglomeration. 
• Deindustrialization: Loss of industrial activity in a region. 
• Development: The process of economic growth, expansion, or realization of regional resource potential. 
• E-commerce: Web-based economic activities. 
• Economic backwaters: Regions that fail to gain from national economic development. 
• Ecotourism: A form of tourism, based on the enjoyment of scenic areas or natural wonders, that aims to provide an experience of nature or culture in an environmentally sustainable way.
• Export-processing zone: Area where governments create favorable investment and trading conditions to attract export-oriented industries. 
• Fast world: Areas of the world, usually the economic core, that experience greater levels of connection due to high-speed telecommunications and transportation technologies. 
• Footloose firms: Manufacturing activities in which the cost of transporting both raw materials and finished product is not important for determining the location of the firm. 
• Fordism: System of standardized mass production attributed to Henry Ford. 
• Foreign investments: Overseas business investments made by private companies. 
• Gender equity: A measure of the opportunities given to women compared to men within a given country. 
• Globalization: The idea that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected on a global scale such that smaller scales of political and economic life are becoming obsolete. 
• Gross domestic product: The total value of goods and services produced within the borders of a country during a specific time period, usually one year. 
• Gross National Product: The total value of goods and services, including income received from abroad, produced by the residents of a country within a specific time period, usually one year. 

Check out our full AP Human Geography Unit 7 Notes.