Skip to content

A-Level Geography Flashcards: Human Geography

Geography — Human Geography Flashcards

20 interactive flashcards for A-Level Geography. Press Space to flip, rate 1-4.

What These Flashcards Cover

These flashcards test your understanding of how humans organise, interact with, and modify their environments. You should be able to explain spatial patterns, evaluate development strategies, and analyse urban and population change.

Key areas:

  • Globalisation: The increasing interconnectedness of economies, cultures, and populations through trade, technology, and migration. Drivers: improvements in transport and communication, liberalisation of trade, TNCs (transnational corporations). Consequences: economic growth in some regions, deindustrialisation in others, cultural homogenisation, and environmental degradation.
  • Urbanisation: The shift from rural to urban living. Megacities (population > 10 million) are growing fastest in the Global South. Urban models: Burgess (concentric zones), Hoyte (sector model), Harris and Ullman (multiple nuclei). Challenges: informal settlements (favelas, shantytowns), inadequate infrastructure, pollution, social inequality.
  • Migration: Push factors (poverty, conflict, persecution) and pull factors (employment, freedom, safety). Forced migration: refugees and internally displaced people. Voluntary migration: economic migrants. Brain drain: the loss of skilled workers from developing countries. Remittances: money sent home by migrants.
  • Development: Measuring development: GDP per capita, HDI (Human Development Index), PPP (Purchasing Power Parity). Development strategies: import substitution, export-oriented industrialisation, microfinance, fair trade. The role of aid: humanitarian, developmental, and tied aid.
  • Population Dynamics: Demographic transition model: from high birth and death rates to low. Stage 1: high stationary. Stage 2: early expanding. Stage 3: late expanding. Stage 4: low stationary. Stage 5: declining. Dependency ratio: the ratio of dependents (under 15 and over 65) to working-age population.
  • Inequality: Within-country inequality (rich vs poor regions) and between-country inequality (Global North vs Global South). The Kuznets curve suggests inequality rises then falls with development. Causes of inequality: colonial history, trade structures, governance, geography.
  • Cultural Diversity: The spread of cultures through migration, trade, and media. Glocalisation: global products adapted to local cultures. Cultural convergence vs cultural divergence. The role of language, religion, and identity in shaping place.

Intuition

Think of human geography as the study of patterns on the surface of the Earth. Why are some places rich and others poor? Why do people move from one place to another? Why do cities grow? The answers involve a complex mix of physical geography (climate, resources), history (colonialism, trade routes), economics (industrialisation, global markets), and human behaviour (cultural values, political decisions).

Globalisation is like a web that is getting tighter. Each thread (trade route, internet connection, flight path) connects two points. As the web grows, it becomes harder for any point to remain isolated — but also harder for any point to escape the web’s influence.

Common Pitfalls

  1. Confusing push and pull factors. Push factors drive people away from a place (war, poverty). Pull factors attract people to a place (jobs, safety). A common error is mixing these up or listing a pull factor as a push factor.
  2. Oversimplifying development. GDP alone does not measure development. A country can have high GDP but high inequality (e.g. some oil-rich nations). The HDI (combining income, education, and health) is a better measure.
  3. Assuming urbanisation is always beneficial. Rapid urbanisation can lead to overcrowding, pollution, inadequate services, and social tension. Not all urbanisation is planned or sustainable.
  4. Confusing the demographic transition model stages. Stage 2 has falling death rates but high birth rates (rapid growth). Stage 3 has falling birth rates (growth slows). Stage 4 has low birth and death rates (stable). A common error is confusing stages 2 and 3.

Cross-References