Agricultural Revolution: Advances in technology that dramatically change our ability to grow, process, and distribute foods. The first agricultural revolution occurred when people domesticated plants & animals 12 000 years ago. In 1700's A.D., farmers applied scientific ideas and new machines to produce more food.

Arable Land: Land that can be used to grow crops.

Assimilation: One culture's changing to fit, or to be more like, another.

Baby Boom Cohort: The group of babies born between 1947 &1960.

Bartering: an informal economic activity in which goods & services, but not cash, are exchanged. Trading car repairs for bookkeeping services is an example.

Berlin Wall: A patrolled, high wall built through the city of Berlin in the 1500s to prevent movement of between the East & West.

Birth Rate: The number of babies born each year for every 1000 people in the country.

Capital: Money used to promote economic activities, for example, to build machines or to construct buildings.

Census: The survey of a population to gather particular facts.

Collectivize: The pooling of resources so that all members of the group can use them & there is no longer private ownership. In farming, collectivization means that farmers do not own the land.

Colonies: Places that are controlled by a more powerful country. From the 1400s through the 1800s, European countries kept colonies in the America's, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

Colonization: The establishing of colonies in other parts of the world, often by force.

Command Economy: An economic system in which decisions are made by an individual or a small group of people for everyone else.

Commodities: Anything that is bought or sold. The term is most often used to refer to products made from natural resources.

Conglomerate: A large corporation that owns many different companies.

Co-operative Farming: A system in which farmers work together, sharing the labour and the output of a farm. No one person owns the farm or it's equipment.

Correlation: The relationship between two variables.

Cosmopolitan: Ethnically and culturally diverse.

Cultural Diffusion: The movement of parts of one culture into another.

Cultural Realm: A large region of the world sharing significant cultural similarities.

Culture: A way of life shared by a group of people, including the way they obtain food, the way they bring up their children, their values, beliefs, language, customs & religion.

Death Rate: The number of people who die each year for every 1000 people in the country.

Demographic Trends: Factors that describe changes in the general population.

Desertification: The expansion of deserts into surrounding areas.

Developed countries: Countries that have a high proportion of their workforce in tertiary industries, with small percentages in primary industries. Income in these countries are usually high. Canada is a developed country.

Developing countries: Countries that have high proportions of their workforce engaged in primary industries & a small proportion working in the tertiary sector. Incomes in these countries are usually quite low. India is a developing country.

Doubling time: The time it takes for a country's population to double.

Downsizing: A massive lay off of workers by a company.

Economic activity: All of those things that people do to try and make their lives better and more comfortable.

Economic systems: The way that societies make economic decisions about what to produce and how to distribute it.

Economically diversified: Having many different ways to generate jobs and money. For example, a city has factories, stores, restaurants etc…

Economists: People who study the way economies work, often collecting data about how people make economic decisions.

Emigrant: A person who moves out of a country.

Emigrate: To leave your country for another.

Enclaves: Areas often within large cities that are concentrations of a particular cultural group.

Entrepot: A transportation centre where goods are shipped to be prepared for transportation in larger loads to destinations around the world. Halifax is an entrepot in Canada.

Environmental Migration: Movements of people or animals in response to an environmental trigger, such as an earthquake or a long-term drought.

Epidemic: A sudden outbreak of illness that causes the death rate to go up sharply.

Exit Tax: A high fee that people had to pay in the USSR to leave during the 1950s to the 1980s.

Fertility Rate: The average number of babies born throughout a woman's lifetime in a country.

Fibre Optics: A technology used to send electronic data over specially designed cables.

Finished Goods: Goods produced by secondary industries that consumers can use, such as automobiles, furniture, or food products.

Forced Migration: A mass movement of people who must leave their homes against their will.

Foreign Debt: Money that a country owes to banks and lending agencies in other countries. Such loans are usually taken in order to make improvements in people's quality of life.

Formal Economic Activities: Work for which wages are paid and records are kept.

Free Trade: Trade between countries that takes place without tariffs or other barriers. Canada has a free trade agreement with Mexico and the United States.

Frontier Areas: Regions that are just being opened up to human settlement.

Gastarbeiter: A foreign migrant worker ("guest worker") in Germany.

Globalization: The increasing trend to do business on an international level. Trading countries must take into account all the forces that are at work around the world in order to compete.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP): The total value of all the goods and services produced within a country in a year. It is often expressed as GDP per capita, which is the GDP divided by the population.

Gross National Product (GNP): The sum of all the economic activities of the citizens of a country in one year, regardless of where the money was earned. It may be expressed as GNP per capita, which is the average per person earnings.

Habitation: A place where people live.

Human Development Index (HDI): A set of living conditions, such as literacy rate, death rate, and life expectancy, that give a general picture of what life is like in a given country.

Immigrant: A person who moves into a country.

Immigrate: To move into another country.

Industrial Revolution: The period in the 1700s and 1800s that saw the changeover from a mainly farm-oriented society to a mainly industrial society.

Industrialization: The rapid development of manufacturing in a society. Workers usually move out of a declining agricultural sector into an expanding industrial sector.

Informal Economic Activities: Work that people do that is not reported as an economic activity to avoid records being kept and taxes paid. Garage and yard sales are examples of informal economic activities.

Infrastructure: Structures and systems built to enable a society to work well, such as roads, hospitals, electricity, clean water systems, schools, etc.

Interprovincial Migration: The movement of people from one province or territory in Canada to another.

Iron Curtain: The name given to the borders separating Communist -controlled countries from the West. This was a very controlled border that prevented people from crossing from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Knowledge Worker: A person working in one of the information industries, such as computer software development.

Labour: The human effort that goes into producing goods and services.

Land: All the natural resources that people have available for economic activities. Forests, minerals, and water fit this economic category.

Land Use: The different ways that people use land, for example, for farms, houses, roads, etc.

Life Expectancy: The number of years that a baby born in a certain year in a country can be expected to live.

Literacy Rate: The percentage of people over age 15 in a country that can read.

Mainstream Population: The major cultural group in a society. In Ontario, the mainstream population has been white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant.

Market: The consumers who buy a good or purchase a service.

Market economy: An economic system in which decisions are made by everyone acting on his or her own. There is n form of central control on people's economic decisions.

Mass Migration: The movement of large numbers of people over a fairly short time period (for example, the flow of people out of Europe after the world wars).

Material Wealth: Goods and service that we can see and touch that make our lives better, such as refrigerators and haircuts.

Megalopolis: A "super city."

Migrant workers: People who travel from one country to another for seasonal or even longer periods of employment.

Migrants' remittance: The money sent home by migrant workers to their families which becomes an "invisible" gain for their country.

Migration: The movement of people (or animals or things) from one place to another for political, economic, or environmental reasons.

Mixed Economy: An economic system in which decisions are made by a combination of consumers, businesses, and governments. Canada has a mixed economy.

Moderate Population Density: A medium level of population in relation to the area that contains it (medium ratio of people to land area).

Monoculture: growing only one crop on a farm.

Multicultural Policy: Canada's official government policy of encouraging groups representing many different cultures to keep their identities and heritage alive while participating in mainstream Canadian society.

Natural Increase: A rise in population because the birth rate is higher than the death rate.

Net Immigration: The difference between the number of people who leave a country (emigrate) and the number who enter the country (immigrate).

Non-governmental Organizations (NGO's): Groups that are not connected to any government and that work to solve social problems.

Non-material Wealth: Those factors that improve our lives but are difficult to touch or describe, such as human rights and the freedom to worship as we wish.

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): An agreement currently among Canada, Mexico, and United States to allow tariff-free trade of goods and services.

Oases: Locations where water is available in a desert, usually marked by trees. The singular form of the word oasis.

Organic Farming: Growing food without using any fertilizers or pesticides.

Outsourcing: The hiring of outside, independent workers to do some part of a company's work.

Per Capita Income: The average amount of money earned in a certain year by a person in a country.

Point System: A method used by the government to assess a potential immigrant's suitability using different measures such as family ties, language, and work skills.

Population Characteristics: Factors that describe how a group of people is doing or changing in a given country, for example, natural increase, literacy rate, infant mortality rate, etc.

Population Density: The ratio of the number of people living in an area to the size of the area.

Population Distribution: The patterns of where people live.

Population Pyramid: A graph that shows the number of males and females in a country at each age division at a specific time.

Primary Industry: Economic activities that extract natural resources from the environment and make them into semi-finished products.

Processed: Materials that are changed in some way before we use them. For example, wood is processed to make paper; some foods are processed by changing their colour or texture.

Productivity: The amount of work done related to the time, effort, energy, and money that was needed to produce it. More efficient ways of doing things usually result in greater productivity.

Protectionism: Actions taken on the part of a country to isolate itself from the rest of the world. Tariffs are one way that countries try to protect themselves from industries in other countries.

Quality of Life: The amount of satisfaction we have with our lives, talking into account both material and non-material wealth.

Quaternary Industry: A category of economic activities that mostly provides services dealing with ideas rather than with material goods.

Quota: The maximum number of immigrants allowed to enter a country per year.

Racism: Discrimination against people because of their skin colour or appearance.

Refugee Status: A level of recognition given to people who claim to be refugees on entering a country. After government officials hear their case, a decision is made to grant or not to grant refugee status.

Refugees: People who are displaced or who flee from their country for social, economic, political, or environmental reasons.

Replacement Level: The fertility rate required for a population to replace itself. Usually, a fertility rate of at least 2.1 is needed, taking into account infant mortality rates.

Revolution: A period of rapid change when people adopt new ways of doing things. An agricultural revolution occurred when early humans first domesticated plants and animals; in the 1800s, the industrial revolution saw the development of manufacturing and industries. Today, computers and the internet can be described as a technological revolution.

Sahel: The region along the southern fringe of the Sahara desert across Africa, where long-term drought and desertification have occurred.

Scatter Graph: A graph plotted points that shows the relationship (or lack of relationship) between two sets of data.

Secondary Industry: Economic activities that take semi-finished products from the primary industries and manufacture them into finished consumer goods.

Semi-Finished Product: The goods produced by primary industries. These products are not refined enough to be used by consumers. A roll of steel produced by the steel industry is an example. The steel needs to be manufactured into goods like pots and pans before consumers can use it.

Settlement Patterns: The ways in which people organize the places in which they live.

Site: The physical features of an area.

Situation: The relationship between a site and it's surroundings, such as available natural resources, transportation routes, etc.

Sparse Population: A low population density in relation to the area that contains it.

Squatter Settlement: A makeshift community in or around large cities where people gather and live in poor conditions.

Statistics: Information given in the form of numbers.

Stone Age: An early time of human history when technology was not well advanced. Tools were often made of stone or bones.

Structural Adjustments: Changes in employment patterns that occur as a country tries to change it's economy to compete in a global market. Often, unemployment is a result of structural adjustments.

Sub-Saharan Africa: The Sahel region of Africa, south of the Sahara desert, where mainly grasses and shrubs grow.

Subsistence Farming: Farming that meets the needs of the farm family, with little left over to sell.

Tariffs: Taxes charged on goods imported into a country. Tariffs make imported goods more expensive than locally made products.

Technology: Resources used in economic activities that aren't natural resources, such as machinery and knowledge.

Tertiary Industry: Economic activities that provide services to consumers, such as auto repairs, bookkeeping, and dry cleaning.

Third World: The developing countries of the world, especially those that became independent in Africa and Asia after World War 2. This term is now considered old-fashioned.

Trade Agreements: Arrangements in which countries agree to regulate the exchange of goods and services among themselves. The first North American Free Trade Agreement was a trade agreement among Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

Trading Bloc: A group of nations that have agreed to treat the goods and services of fellow members in a special fashion, giving them preference over goods and services from non-member countries.

Urban Sprawl: The growth of cities out into surrounding rural areas.

Urbanization: A shift of population from the rural area to the cities, with the resulting changes in people's lifestyles.

Visible Minorities: Groups that, because eof their skin colour or dress, are easily recognized as appearing different from the mainstream population.

Xenophobia: Fear of strangers; particularly, a mistrust of people who look and act differently.

Yield: The amount of food grown on a specific amount of land.