AP Human Geography Course Outline of Content for Chapters III, IV and V

Cultural Patterns, Political Organization of Space, Agriculture and Land Use

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III. Cultural Patterns and Processes

A. Concepts of culture

1. Traits and complexes
2. Diffusion
3. Acculturation
4. Cultural regions and realms

B. Cultural differences

1. Language
2. Religion
3. Ethnicity
4. Gender
5. Popular and folk culture

C. Environmental impact of cultural attitudes and practices

D. Cultural landscapes and cultural identity

1. Values and preferences
2. Symbolic landscapes and sense of place

IV. Political Organization of Space

A. Territorial dimensions of politics

1. The concept of territoriality
2. The nature and meaning of boundaries
3. Influences of boundaries on identity, interaction, and exchange

B. Evolution of the contemporary political pattern

1. Territorial assumptions underlying the nation-state ideal
2. Colonialism and imperialism
3. Internal political boundaries and arrangements

C. Challenges to inherited political-territorial arrangements

1. Changing nature of sovereignty
2. Fragmentation, unification, alliance
3. Spatial relationships between political patterns and patterns of ethnicity, economy, and environment

V. Agricultural and Rural Land Use

A. Development and diffusion of agriculture

1. Neolithic Agricultural Revolution
2. Evolution of energy sources and technology
3. Regions of plant and animal domestication

B. Major agricultural production regions

1. Agricultural systems associated with major bio-climatic zones
2. Production and food supply: linkages and flows

C. Rural land use and change

1. Land us and location models
2. Settlement patterns and urban-rural connection
3. Environmental and social impacts of intensification

D. Impacts of modern agricultural change

1. Green Revolution
2. Consumption, nutrition, and hunger
3. Industrial/commercial agriculture
4. Environmental change: desertification, deforestation, etc.