Culture is defined as a particular group's material characteristics, behavioral patterns, beliefs, social norms, and attitudes that are shared and transmitted.

Cultural hearth is defined as a place where innovations and new ideas originate and diffuse to other places which can include Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus River Valley, etc.

Culture complex combines cultural traits (attributes of culture).

Habit - a repetitive act that a particular individual performs. Culture complexes that share some cultural traits may converge to form a culture system.

Custom - a repetitive act that a particular group performs.

Folk Culture is predominantly present among homogenous groups of people maintaining their traditions, values, mostly in isolation. Also, folk culture varies from place to place, pop culture varies from time to time in each place.

Material vs. Non-Material Culture: There is two types of culture: material and nonmaterial culture. Material culture values items such as clothing, furniture, artifacts that are physically tangible, whereas nonmaterial culture values customs, traditions, folk stories, myths, religion, oral and written languages (mentifacts) in addition to religious organizations, political and educational institutions, etc (sociofacts) that are intangible.

Food

Food preferences are significantly distinct in various folk cultures as well due to religious and socioeconomic factors impacting customs. Taboos are restrictions imposed by social customs. In terms of food preferences, Islam and Judaism prohibit the consumption of pork.Food preferences depend on wealth, status, advertising (Wine for instance is consumed mostly by those that can afford it).

Housing

Housing preferences in popular culture depends largely on the dominant architectural trend at a given time. Housing preferences are also influenced by folk customs and environmental factors of what is appropriate to have in certain regions based on the availability of resources.

Governments: Governments worried over social mobility, worried about youth and women empowerment, diversity etc. as it may threaten folk cultural ideals. They may ban popular news media outlets and limit freedom of speech (soviet union) (North Korea) censorship present. Other threats are inability to avoid pop culture influences and expansion of globalization.

Social Customs: A social custom originates at a specific location or cultural hearth that is the center of innovation, progress, etc. regarded as popular culture.

Pop Culture

Popular culture is practiced by large, heterogeneous groups, originating from more developed regions, resulting from more leisure time, wealth to acquire elements of pop culture, widespread diffusion through hierarchical from specific nodes, and contagious.

Ethnocentrism is a biased perspective of one's ethnic group as being superior.

Cultural relativism is the objective (unbiased) view of understanding others cultural beliefs and customs.

Cultural landscape is made up of structures within the physical landscape caused by human imprint/human activities.

Cultural ecology is the study of how the natural environment can influence a culture group.

Sequent occupancy is the theory that a place can be occupied by multiple different groups each modifying the landscape and having its own imprint for future occupiers

Adaptive strategy is the way humans adapt to the physical and cultural landscape they are living in.

Perceptual/Vernacular Regions are defined by certain cultural traits that people perceive them as that develop through books, media images, historical and cultural differences between regions. (bible belt, Chinatown).

Formal Regions are areas inhabited by people who have one or more characteristics in common such as dialect, local cuisine, local activities, etc.

Functional regions are areas organized to function politically, socially, and economically as a single unit. Radio broadcasts local culture, sports teams bring people together

Toponyms are places that reflect cultural identity in a specific cultural landscape. The names of certain toponyms can reflect past origins such as Santa Barbara (Santa-saint).

The gender gap refers to differences in socioeconomic and political power, opportunity between men and women.

Centripetal forces unify a state and provide stability.

Centrifugal forces divide a state leading to balkanization, weakening, etc.

Cultural shatter-belt is the process where a state breaks down through Ethnic Conflict (balkanization).

A barrio is a Spanish-speaking neighborhood.

Ethnic cleansing is where the more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes the less powerful ethnic group to make a homogenous nation state.

Balkanization is the process by which a state breaks down due to conflicts among its ethnicities.

Land Survey Systems List

-Rectangular survey system/Public Land Survey system- divides land into a series of rectangular parcels used by the U.S. to parcel land west of the Appalachian mountains.

-Long-lot survey system-land is divided into narrow parcels stretching from rivers, roads or canals. Spanish colonists adopted it, found a French charter group in Mississippi and St. Lawrence River valleys, Canadian Maritimes, parts of Quebec, Louisiana, and Texasland.

-Township and Range system- A rectangular land division scheme designed by Thomas Jefferson to disperse settlers evenly across farmlands of the U.S. interior.

-Metes and bounds system- relies on descriptions of land ownership and natural features such as streams or trees marked land boundaries. surveying east of the Appalachian Mountains.

Sense of place is the perception based on our emotional connection and association to a certain place).

Place lessness is the similarity of places of popular cultures everywhere and the loss of a place’s unique identity due to the influence of popular culture and globalization.

Environmental determinism was theorized by Ellsworth Huntington who stated that the physical environment controls/determines behavior among humans. This theory has a few implications such that it does not consider that the main location of cultural hearths is in lower latitude regions and citizens in tropical civilizations have established advanced societies which counters this interpretation.

Possibilism states that the physical environment establishes limitations of the possibilities of populations. This theory is more accepted than environmental determinism yet does not explain how we have flourished beyond our environment to progress, innovate, and evolve technologically.

Cultural determinism states that the environment does not play a role towards determining human behaviors or placing restrictions but rather humans place their own cultural restrictions.

A culture region is a portion of earth's surface with inhabitant populations sharing distinctive cultural characteristics. Differences among cultural groups are greater than differences among individuals of a certain cultural group. Environment forms culture.

Colonialism is defined as an attempt by one country to establish settlements and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory. Colonialism is a violent form of cultural diffusion

The trading of goods by merchants also allowed cultural diffusion. To communicate with traders and consumers, common languages were developed to increase interconnectedness. Trade routes are centers of more people, which means more cultures coming together. The establishment of trading routes such as the Silk Road led to further trading and communication connections to arise.

The definition of cultural diffusion is the geographical and social spread of the different aspects of one culture to different ethnicities, religions, nationalities, regions, etc. Cultural diffusion is about the spreading of culture over time.

Relocation Diffusion occurs when people move from their original location to another and bring their innovations with them.

Expansion Diffusion is the spread of an idea through a population where the amount of those influenced grows continuously larger. There are three sub-types of Expansion diffusion: Stimulus, Hierarchical, and Contagious.

Contagious Diffusion is defined as the distance-controlled spreading of an idea through a local population by contact from person to person. Similarly, to a disease, it spreads rapidly from one source to another from person to person. Another way to think of it is like the spreading of a forest fire.

Hierarchical Diffusion is when an idea spreads by passing first among the most connected individuals, then spreading to other individuals. Think of the chain of command in businesses, and the government. There’s somewhat of a hierarchy in terms of the position of authority.

Stimulus Diffusion is when an idea diffuses from its cultural hearth outward, but the original idea is changed by the new adopters. Almost all cultural diffusions will have some aspect of stimulus diffusion because of the ways culture adapts to new environmental, social, and political conditions.

Maladaptive Diffusion is the adoption of diffusing traits that are not practical or reflective of a region's environment or culture.

Globalization - interconnection of all regions of the world through politics, technology, communication, marketing, economics, manufacturing, and sociocultural processes.

Urbanization - the population shift from rural areas to urban areas, the gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas. The rise of Industry caused the rise in urbanization.