Geog terms

Confucianism: Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius
originated in China but has spread to Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. Most people who adhere to the teachings of Confucius follow Chinese traditional religion
shogun ate: government of the shogun, or hereditary military dictator, of Japan from ad 1192 to 1867.
is a military rank and historical title for (in most cases) a hereditary military dictator of Japan.[1] The modern rank is equivalent to a Generalissimo. Although the original meaning of "shogun" is simply "a general", as a title, it is used as the short form of seii taishōgun 征夷大将軍, the governing individual at various times in the history of Japan, ending when Tokugawa Yoshinobu relinquished the office to the Meiji Emperor in 1867.[2]
Geomancy: is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand. The most prevalent form of divinatory geomancy involves interpreting a series of 16 figures formed by a randomized process that involves recursion followed by analyzing them, often augmented with astrological interpretations.
Wind and Water, an indication that this belief or study put great reference to the natural wind and water elements of Mother Nature
Burakumin: are a Japanese social minority group


Superconurbation: a large urbanized area formed from a number of large metropolitan areas, generally with populations of over a million. Superconurbations occur when metropolitan areas physically merge to form one continuous built up area through population growth and expansion.
Examples include Japan, where Tokyo continues to grow as an urban environment.
Central Place Theory: created by the German geographer Walter Christaller, who asserted that settlements simply functioned as 'central places' providing services to surrounding areas

Pollution exporting: a more developed country sending their waste and garbage to another less developed country.
Bissau Harbor, Guinea Bissau (Credit: T. Agardy)

Special economic zones: is a geographical region that has economic and other laws that are more free-market-oriented than a country's typical or national laws. "Nationwide" laws may be suspended inside a special economic zone.
The category 'SEZ' covers a broad range of more specific zone types, including Free Trade Zones (FTZ), Export Processing Zones (EPZ), Free Zones (FZ), Industrial parks or Industrial Estates (IE), Free Ports, Urban Enterprise Zones and others.
prominent SEZs in the country are Shenzhen, Xiamen, Shantou, and Zhuhai. It is notable that Shenzhen, Shantou, and Zhuhai are all in Guangdong province, and all are on the southern coast of China where sea is very accessible for transportation of goods.


Anthropogenic landscapes: Human Landscapes" are areas of Earth's terrestrial surface where direct human alteration of ecological
Poor air quality in China due to factories and burning fossil fuels
Rust belt: Manufacturing Belt or the Factory Belt
BEIJING - Once China's industrial heartland, the country's northeast region has turned into a "rust belt"

Cast system: is a system of social stratification and social restriction in India in which communities are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called Jatis


Monsoon: rainy phase of a seasonally-changing pattern, although technically there is also a dry phase
term was first used in English in British India (now India, Bangladesh and Pakistan) and neighbouring countries to refer to the big seasonal winds blowing from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea in the southwest bringing heavy rainfall to the area

Jainism: is an Indian religion that prescribes pacifism and a path of non- violence towards all living beings. Karma. There is no divine being but the universe has its own order a peace

4.2 million followers in India

Sikhism: monotheistic religion
Punjab is the only state in India with a majority Sikh population
Hindi: Hindu belief is enormously diverse: some Hindus are vegetarian, others eat meat; some Hindus believe in many gods, some in one God, some in none at all.
Common to the majority of Hindus is the search for salvation (moksha) – release from the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara) Brahman is the term for the divine and absolute reality. Brahman may be worshipped in many different guises (pantheistic), and also as only one of many Gods (polytheistic) is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition[1] of South Asia whom approximately 1 billion live in India.[10][11] Other significant populations are found in Nepal (23 million), Bangladesh (14 million) and the Indonesian island of Bali (3.3 million

Green revolution: refers to a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives, occurring between the 1940s and the late 1970s, that increased agriculture production around the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s.[1]
The initiatives involved the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers
In the 1960s and '70s, farmers in the Indian state of Punjab changed from traditional methods to American-style farming.


British east India company: was an early English joint-stock company traded mostly with India cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea, and opium. The Company also came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions, to the exclusion, gradually, of its commercial pursuits
The Indian Mutiny of 1857 resulted in widespread devastation in India and condemnation of the East India Company for permitting the events to occur.[citation needed] One of the consequences of the Indian Mutiny was that the British Government nationalised the Company. The Company lost all its administrative powers; its Indian possessions, including its armed forces, were taken over by the Crown pursuant to the provisions of the Government of India Act 1858.

Orogrphic rainfall: is the study of the formation and relief of mountains, precipitation occurs on the windward side of mountains


the orography of East Africa substantially determines the strength of the Indian monsoon

Dravidian language: includes approximately 85 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India

Forward captial: location may be for either economic or strategic reasons
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan; region has historically been a part of the crossroads of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with Margalla pass acting as the gateway between the two regions.

Southeast asia: 
ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations; goals are to peacefully economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region through joint endeavours in the spirit of equality and partnership in order to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of Southeast Asian Nations;

was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand, with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) by the Founding Fathers of ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Brunei Darussalam then joined on 7 January 1984, Viet Nam on 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999, making up what is today the ten Member States of ASEAN.

Sunda shelf: is a south east extension of the continental shelf of Southeast Asia. Major landmasses on the shelf include the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Madura, Bali and their surrounding smaller islands.[1] It covers an areas of approximately 1.85 million km2.[2] Sea depths over the shelf rarely exceed 50 metres and extensive areas are less than 20 metres resulting in strong bottom friction and strong tidal friction

Typhoons: is a storm system characterized by a large low-pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain.
forecasts is in Japan, with other tropical cyclone warning centers for the northwest Pacific in Honolulu (the Joint Typhoon Warning Center), the Philippines, and Hong Kong. While the RSMC names each system, the main name list itself is coordinated amongst 18 countries, including the United States, who have territories threatened by typhoons each year. The Philippines uses their own naming list for systems which approach the country.

Swidden agriculture: is an agricultural technique which involves cutting and burning of forests or woodlands to create fields. It is typically part of shifting cultivation agriculture, and of transhumance livestock herding. Slash and burn agriculture typically uses little technology and other tools, and is almost always done for subsistence activity. It is also commonly called swidden agriculture. Most slash and burn agriculture is subsistence agriculture done by farmers who plant crops and raise crops for local consumption. Very little land cleared using labor-intensive slash and burn methods is sold for market; rather what is grown is usually consumed on the farm.
many parts of Indonesia, and involves an estimated 11 million hectares of land, and some six million people

Golden triangle: is one of Asia's two main illicit opium-producing areas

Transmigration: to cause to go from one state of existence or place to another
by Indonesian government to move landless people from densely populated areas of Indonesia to less populous areas of the country. This involved moving people permanently from the island of Java, but also to a lesser extent from Bali and Madura, to less densely populated areas including Papua, Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Sulawesi.

Primate cites: leading city in its country or region, disproportionately larger than any others in the urban hierarchy
Bangkok is the epitome of the primate city in Thailand



Khmer rouge: was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979

Entrepot: is a trading post where merchandise can be imported and exported without paying import duties. The origins of the entrepot are traced to the commercial behavior of ancient societies. Traders entering foreign territory were exposed to numerous natural and cultural hazards. In addition to facing harsh traveling conditions, they might be attacked by brigands or find themselves in places where they did not know the local languages or customs and were subject to territory-specific laws under which they would find no protection.
Hong Kong also serves as an entrepôt for trade between Asian economies not including China.

Elongated state: An elongated or attenuated nation such as Chile makes for difficult governance of peripheral areas in the north and south from the central capital region near Santiago. Vietnam is also an elongated state.

Fragmented state: Nations such as Indonesia, which is composed of more than 13,000 islands, are known as fragmented or archipelagic states (because they are composed of archipelagos). It is difficult to govern such a country composed of islands (and more than 200 million people).
Denmark and the Philippines are also archipelagic countries separated by water.

Prorupt state: A protruded or panhandle country such as Myanmar (Burma) or Thailand have an extended arm of territory. Like an elongated state, the panhandle complicates that shape of the territory. The state of Oklahoma also has a prominent panhandle.

Comopact state: A compact state with a circular shape is the easiest to manage. Belgium is an excellent example because of the cultural division between Flanders and Wallonia within Belgium. The compact form of Belgium has helped to keep the country together. Compact states are also easier to defend than states of other shapes.

Abroigine: are those people regarded as indigenous to the Australian continent.
Australian Aborigines have been categorised and labelled over time. Her lecture offered a new perspective on the terms urban, traditional and of Indigenous descent as used to define and categorise Aboriginal Australians. She said:
"Not only are these categories inappropriate, they serve to divide us. [...] Government’s insistence on categorising us with modern words like ‘urban’, ‘traditional’ and ‘of Aboriginal descent’ are really only replacing old terms ‘half-caste’ and ‘full-blood’ – based on our colouring.[6]"

Maori: people of New Zealand,
One of the first things you become immediately aware of in New Zealand is the influence of the Maori culture. The vast majority of place names are of Maori origin. At first, visitors may be puzzled by the seemingly impossible-to-pronounce names

Melanesia: is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji


Micronesia: is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean.

Polynesia: “many islands” Hawaiian Islands at one corner, New Zealand at another, and Easter Island
The larger islands are generally volcanic in origin; the smaller ones are generally coral formations. The principal groups are the Hawaiian Islands, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Kiribati islands, Cook Islands, and the islands of French Polynesia. Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken in Polynesia.


Tsunamis: Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions (including detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides and other mass movements, meteorite ocean impacts or similar impact events, and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami


Atoll: is an island (or islands) of coral that encircles a lagoon partially or completely.

A very famous atoll is Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean due to its use as a testing ground for atomic and hydrogen bomb tests

Archipelago: islands or island group is a chain or cluster of islands Archipelagos are often volcanic, forming along island arcs generated by subduction zones or hotspots, but there are many other processes involved in their construction, including erosion, deposition and land elevation.
The five largest modern countries that are mainly archipelagos are Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The largest archipelagic state in the world, by size, is Indonesia

Haoles: is generally used to refer to an individual that fits one (or more) of the following: "White person, American, Englishman, Caucasian; American
mainly in Hawaii to describe a white person. Depending on how you say it, the word can mean either an insult or just a fact.


Outback: is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia