C
Caldera: Caldera is a large crater formed by an explosion (volcanic) or
by a fall of a volcanic cone.
Canopy: When trees make an umbrella over a given land surface it's
called a canopy.
Canyon: A deep and wide steep valley is called a canyon.
CAP: See Common Agricultural Policy.
Capillary Action: The upward movement of water through soil is known as
the capillary action.
Capillary Water: The principal source of moisture for plants, capillary
water is the moisture stored between the soil particles.
Capital Intensive: an activity which requires a lot of money.
Capital: money.
Capital: The amount of money belonging to a country, factory or a
person.
Capital: wealth created for use in the production of further wealth.
Examples of capital are money, machines and buildings.
Capital-Intensive: an activity which requires a lot of money.
Carbon tax: Carbon tax is levied on products made from fossil fuels to
discourage consumers from buying it and to prevent global warming.
Cardinal Points: Four main directions-North, South, East and West
Cardinal Points: North, South, East and West are known as cardinal
points.
Cardinal Points: The four main points of the compass: (N., S., E., W.)
Carrying Capacity: Carrying capacity is the theory that a particular
environment can hold only a certain level of population.
Cartogram: Cartogram is used to show statistical data pertaining to
geographical distribution on a map.
Cartographer: A person who draws or makes maps or charts.
Cartography: Cartography in geographic terminology means the art or
techniques of making maps.
Cash Crop: where a crop is sold in the market for cash; the term is
often applied to crops grown in LEDCs which are exported to the MEDCs.
Cash Cropping: Cash cropping is growing crops for the purpose of making
money.
Cataract: As a geography term, cataract means a huge waterfall that descends
from a great height.
Catastrophism: Catastrophism is a belief that the world emerged from a
sudden catastrophic event as opposed to a slow and gradual process.
Catchment Area: Catchment area is the land where precipitation levels
are high, which thus, becomes a land fit to make a reservoir.
Catchment: see Drainage Basin.
Cation Exchange Capacity: Cation exchange capacity is the property of
the soil to hold on to the cations. It is a measure of soil fertility and
nutrient retention capacity.
Cave: A recess in the ground, mountain or a valley is called a cave.
Cave: found in coasts formed of resistant rock. Corrasion, Corrosion and
Hydraulic action widen any weakness within the rock e.g. joint, bedding plane
or fault, to form a cave.
CBD: Central Business District or city centre; the commercial and
business centre ot a town or city where land values are at the highest. This is
the most accessible part of the town or city. High land values lead to
intensive use of the land and buildings are built as high as possible to
maximise office space and therefore rental income.
CBD: Central Business District. This is the centre of a town or city
where the main roads meet. It has the most shops, offices and high-rise
buildings.
CBD: The central business district of an urban area, typically
containing an intense concentration of office and retail activities.
Census: a counting of people by the government every ten years to gather
data for planning of schools, hospitals, etc. This is unreliable for a number
of reasons.
Census: Census means the official count of the population. It is done
periodically, usually after every ten years. It is done by gathering relevant
demographic data.
Central Place: any settlement that provides goods and services for
smaller neighbouring settlements.
Cereals: crops where the seeds are the main product e.g. wheat, corn.
Channel: A channel is a deeper part of a harbor or a river meant for
navigation. It is a broad strait that connects two water bodies or seas.
Cheap Labour: See Overseas Competition.
Chemical Weathering: the decomposition (or rotting) of rock caused by a
chemical change within that rock; sea water causes chemical weathering of
cliffs.
Child Dependency ratio: the number of children in relation to the number
of working (economically active) population, usually expressed as a ratio.
Choke Point: A choke point is a narrow passage or a point of crowding.
Chorology: Chorology is the study of regions or aerial differentiation.
Choropleth Map: Choropleth Maps show the difference in regions using
different colors and shading.
Circumference of the Earth: The circumference of the Earth is 24,901.55
miles or 40,075.16 kilometers, when measured from the equator. If measured from
the poles, the circumference measures to 24,859.82 miles or 40,008 kilometers.
Cirque: A bowl-shaped hollow carved on a mountain top is called a
cirque.
Cirque: armchair-shaped hollow in the mountainside formed by glacial
erosion and freeze-thaw weathering. This is where the valley glacier begins.
City: cities are urban places. They are usually large (more than 20,000
people) and are economically self- sufficient (unlike a large dormitory or
suburban town).
Clay Cliffs: clay is a soft, impermeable rock which soaks up water to
become saturated. When this happens the clay becomes unstable and begins to
slump. Clay cliffs have gentle slope angles.
Clean-up: A method of getting rid of pollution.
Clear sky Sky with a total cloud cover of less than one okta.
Cliff Collapse: steep cliffs made of hard, resistant rock, fall down
when there is a loss of supporting rock underneath caused by wave attack.
Cliff Drainage: steel barriers and drains put into a cliff to intercept
the water movement through the cliff which causes mass movement.
Cliff: A tall, steep and a vertical rock surface is called a cliff.
Cliffs: hard, resistant rocks form steep cliffs; soft rocks such as clay
create low, gentle cliffs.
Climate Change: It is the variations in climatic conditions, especially,
in the rainfall pattern and average temperature. More on causes of climate
change.
Climate Long-term (50 year) weather averages.
Climate: Climate is defined as a characteristic meteorological
conditions prevailing in a particular area. This includes precipitation,
temperature and wind patterns.
Climate: The average weather conditions over a large area and over a
longer period of time (30-50 years).
Climatology: Climatology is the study of climate of different
geographical regions.
Climax Vegetation: A stable vegetation, which is grown naturally under
certain environmental conditions is called climax vegetation.
Cloud Seeding: Cloud seeding is an attempt to stimulate precipitation in
the atmosphere by releasing dry ice crystals or silver iodide particles over
and around storm clouds in a given area.
Clouds: Clouds are clusters of water droplets or ice crystals suspended
in the atmosphere. There are formed due to condensation in the atmosphere and
may even consist of dust, smoke and other particles.
Clustered Settlement Pattern: a settlement where buildings are clustered
around a particular point.
Coast: A coast is a strip of land running along the sea. It is a point
where the sea meets the land.
Coastal Landforms: Land areas next to the sea or the coast line, which
are prone to erosion and depositions due to change in the sea levels are known
as coastal landforms. Read more on types of landforms.
Coastal Management: Coastal management refers to the attempt to prevent
erosion and flooding in the coastal areas.
Cold Desert: Cold and arid zones in high latitudes due to lack of
precipitation or locking of water in ice are known as cold deserts.
Cold front The "leading edge" of a relatively cold air mass.
Cold Front: The line of distinction between the cold areas and the warm
areas is known as the cold front.
Cold Glacier: Cold glacier is the glacier where the temperature is -30˚C
all year around. As the glacier is stationary or moves at a very low speed,
erosion is very less.
Collective Farming: Collective farming is a farming trend where the land
is leased by the government to 'collective' or a group of farmers. These
farmers use the land and share the profits among themselves. The term originated
in the USSR, but due to its inefficiency it died out after World War 2.
Colonial Period: the structure of world trade today has its origin in
the colonial period when MEDCs used LEDCs as sources of raw materials for their
factories.
Comets: Stars with long, luminous tails seen from time to time in the
sky.
Commercial Centre: Where business activities such as shops and services
are concentrated.
Commercial Farming: Commercial farming in geographical terminology,
means farming for making profits through market sale.
Commercial Farming: farming for a profit, where food is produced by
advanced technological means for sale in the market. Often very few workers are
employed. (See Subsistence Farming). Market Gardening in the Barcelona area is
an example of commercial farming.
Commercial: used to describe the business activities of trading and
buying or selling goods.
Commodity: products produced for export.
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP): the policy used by the EU to control
farming. (See Guaranteed Prices, Subsidies, Quotas, Diversification,
Intervention, Milk Lakes, Grain Mountains, Set-aside, Over-production).
Communications: The ways in which people, goods and ideas move from one
place to another. It usually refers to roads and railways.
Community Forests: Community forests means creating recreational forests
that are accessible to people.
Commuting: the process by which people living in one place, travel to
another place to work.
Comparison Goods/Services: these are high-order (usually expensive)
goods such as antiques, jewellery, and some clothing and electrical equipment.
They are called comparison goods because people like to compare prices, quality
and other features before buying them. Comparison goods are usually sold in
shops in city centres or large out-of-town shopping centres. People visit
comparison shops only occasionally so they need a large market area.
Compensation: money paid to someone who has experienced loss or injury.
See land reform.
Components: parts of a product that are transported to a factory (plant)
for final assembly e.g. brakes, lights, wheels, glass, seals etc. are all car
components.
Composite Volcano: Composite volcano is a volcanic cone which has alternate
layers of lava and ashes.
Comprehensive Redevelopment: an area, usually in the inner city, where
the whole urban landscape was demolished before being rebuilt on a planned
basis by the council or city government.
Compressing Flow: Compressing flow is when the layer of ice becomes
thicker and slow due to gradient reduction.
Concentrated Population Distribution: where people are grouped densely
in an urbanised area (see Port, Bridging-Point, Route Centre, Wet Point Site,
Market Town, Mining Town, Resort).
Concentric Ring Model: see Burgess model.
Condensation: Condensation is a geographical terminology which means
formation of water droplets or ice crystals in the atmosphere as the water
vapor cools down and reaches the dew point.
Confluence Town: A town that grows where two rivers meet.
Confluence: Confluence is the point where two rivers meet or merge.
Confluence: Where one river joins another.
Confluence: the point at which rivers meet.
Congestion: overcrowding on roads causing traffic jams.
Congestion: Overcrowding on roads causing traffic jams.
Congestion: usually concerned with transport when there is so much
traffic it stops or slows down the movement.
Coniferous Woodland: Woodlands or forests that consists of coniferous
trees are called coniferous woodland.
Coniferous: Bearing cones; from the conifer family.
Connate Water: The trapped water between breaks or interstices of rocks
during its formation is called connate water.
Consequent Stream: An emergence of a stream as a result of consequent
uplift is called a consequent stream.
Conservation: In geography, conservation means the process of
maintaining natural landscape as well as the man-made landscape just the way it
is.
Conservation: The protection of the environment.
Conservationist: People who care for and look after the environment.
Constructive Plate Margin: Constructive plate margin is a part of the
theory of plate tectonics. The plate boundaries of two crustal plate have
lateral movement, which allows the magma to surface from the mantle to form new
crust.
Constructive Wave: It is a low frequency and a low height wave, which
leaves the material from the sea on the beach as the swash is stronger than the
backwash.
Constructive Waves: found on low-angled beaches and mainly responsible
for coastal deposition. They are gently breaking, with a much stronger swash
than backwash.
Consumer: these are people. As trade in goods and services increases,
the power of the consumer increases. Industries must create what people want
(or think they need).
Containerisation: goods being packed into large metal boxes for
transport by road and/or sea.
Continent: A large area of land. There are seven continents: North and
South America; Asia; Europe; Africa; Australia; Antarctica.
Continent: One of the large, continuous areas of the Earth into which
the land surface is divided.
Continental climate A climate with a high temperature range away from
the influence of the sea. Winters will be colder and summers warmer compared to
a coastal location for the same latitude.
Continental Climate: Continental climate is the typical climate
pertaining to the interiors of a continent.
Continental climate: The type of climate found in the interior of the
major continents in the middle, or temperate, latitudes. The climate is
characterized by a great seasonal variation in temperatures, four distinct
seasons, and a relatively small annual precipitation.
Continental Divide: Continental divide is an imaginary line that divides
the continents and decides which ocean precipitation will flow into it.
Continental Drift: Continental drift is a theory that proposes that the
continents of the earth move on the tectonic plates.
Continental Islands: Islands lying near the shore of a continent-
Continental Plate: It is a part of the earth's crust that is made up of
sial.
Continental Shelf: Continental shelf is the extension of continents or
land mass into the oceans. Continental shelves make up the shallowest part of
the ocean.
Continental Shelf: Sea near the shore of a country and more than six
hundred feet in depth. If
Continents: Continents are the huge land masses on earth. Geologically
there are seven continents on the earth. They are Asia, Africa, North America,
South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia.
Continuous Permafrost: Continuous permafrost is permanently frozen land
in the Polar regions, which remains the same all round the year.
Contour Interval: Contour interval is the difference in heights of land
surfaces between contour lines.
Contour Line: Contour lines are the lines showing the places having the
same height above sea level.
Contour lines: Parallel lines used on topographic maps to show the shape
and elevation of the land. They connect points of equal elevation.
Contour Map: Contour map shows the elevation of land masses above the
sea levels and its surface features using contour lines.
Contour Ploughing: the practice of ploughing along the contours or a
slope in order to minimise the down-slope run-off of water and thereby prevent
soil erosion.
Contour Plowing : Contour plowing is the horizontal plowing so that the
furrows remain with the contours.
Contour: A line drawn on a map to join places of the same height above
sea-level.
Contours: Lines of a map drawn through heights of the same live above
the sea.
Contraception: using birth control to stop pregnancy.
Conurbation: a large urban settlement which is the result of towns and
cities spreading out and merging together.
Conurbation: An extensive urban area formed when two or more cities,
originally separate, coalesce to form a continuous metropolitan region.
Conurbation: Two cities that grow and eventually merge together.
Conurbation: When several developed areas come together to make an urban
area, it is called conurbation.
Convection Current: Convection current is the circular movement of
substance under convection in a given space.
Convection: Convection is transfer of heat in gas and liquid, which is
found in atmospheric, oceanic and asthenospheric mediums. The heat moves up as
it gets lighter.
Convenience Goods/Services: these are low/order goods - inexpensive
things that vary little in price, quality or other features that we need to buy
regularly e.g. newspapers, cigarettes and bread. Convenience shops are found on
most street corners where they have a small market area of people who visit the
shop on most days.
Co-operative Agriculture: It is when farmers get-together for improving
farming techniques and making the business cost-effective with the purpose of
sharing profits we call it as co-operative agriculture.
Co-operatives: groups of farmers who join together to share expensive
items of machinery, to buy in bulk and to sell their produce. The co-operative
seeks the best possible price for the product and stops farmers competing among
themselves to sell the most produce, which often causes prices to fall.
Coral Reef: Coral reef is the accumulation of dead coral, which make the
lowest layer, while the live ones live on top.
Core area: The portion of a country that contains its economic, political,
intellectual, and cultural focus. It is often the center of creativity and
change.
Core Region: an area at the heart of economic activity e.g. a well-off
industrial region of a country e.g. South-East England. See Industrial
Development Certificates, Cumulative Causation, Multiplier Effect
andAgglomeration Economies.
Core: Core is the central most area of the earth, which has high
temperatures. It is composed of iron and nickel.
Coriolis Effect: Due to earth's rotation, the freely moving things in
the Northern Hemisphere move towards the right and in the Southern Hemisphere
they move towards the left. This is called the Coriolis Effect. This effect is
seen on winds, ocean currents and airplanes.
Coriolis Force: Coriolis force is the effect of the force on the
hemispheres of the earth as it rotates around itself.
Corner Shop a shop typical of the inner city zone (but also common in
all zones except the CBD) found on every street corner, selling a range of
every-day needs. (See convenience goods and low-order goods/services).
Corrasion: Corrasion is erosion due to abrasion or rubbing.
Corrasion: wearing away of cliffs by sediment flung by breaking waves.
See Abrasion.
Corrie Glacier: Corie glacier is the cause of corrie and responsible for
its formation.
Corrie: Corrie is a bowl shaped hollow carved on top of a glacier.
Corrie: see Cirque.
Corrosion: see Solution.
Coulee: A dry canyon eroded by Pleistocene floods that cut into the lava
beds of the Columbia Plateau in the western United States.
Counter-urbanisation movement of people in MEDCs away from urban areas
to live in smaller towns and villages (see de-urbanisation and urban-rural
shift).
Counterurbanisation: The movement of people from the MEDC cities to the
countryside seeking a better quality of life. Many still commute into the city
to work, but increasing numbers are moving to completely change their lifestyle
and work in the rural area, often by teleworking.
Country: A country is a political outline defined by political
boundaries on the continents.
Cove: A cove is a small recess or cave in a mountain valley.
Crater: Crater is a depression on the surface of the earth due to an
impact making explosion or collapse.
Crater: The circular depression containing a volcanic vent.
Creek: A creek is a small stream. It is generally a shallow tributary of
a river.
Creep: A creep is a very slow movement of soil down a slope.
Crevasse: A deep crack in a glacier is known as crevasse.
Crevasse: a deep crack on the surface of an ice sheet or valley glacier.
Crop Rotation: a method of farming which avoids growing the same crop in
a field continuously. A regular change of crops maintains soil fertility and
reduces the risk of pests and diseases. See Fallow.
Crops: cereals, vegetables and fruit grown by people.
Cross-section: A diagram showing by means of a side view the slopes and
heights of the land surface.
Crust: The Earth's outermost layer.
Crust: The outermost layer of the earth is called the crust. It is about
5 km to 80 km thick and is made up of sial and sima.
Crustal Plate: The sial and sima present in the crust make up the
crustal plate.
Cryosphere: The ice and snow on the Earth's surface, such as glaciers;
sea, lake, and river ice; snow; and permafrost.
Cultivation: Cultivation is preparing the soil to grow crops and to make
it more fertile.
Cultivation: the growing of crops.
Cultural Geography: Cultural geography is the study of human
civilization and its impact on the geography.
Cultural Landscape: Cultural landscape is defined as the study of past
and present uses of the land for cultivation by people.
Culture: The accumulated habits, attitudes, and beliefs of a group of
people that define for them their general behavior and way of life; the total
set of learned activities of a people.
Cumec: Cumec is the unit used to measure water flow rate in natural
streams.
Cumulative Causation: the process by which one region of a country
becomes increasingly the centre of economic activity. (See agglomeration
economies and multiplier effect).
Cuspate Foreland: A triangular shaped beach is called a cuspate
foreland.
Cusps: Small areas which resemble a beach within the beach areas are
called cusps.
Cycle of Decline (Deprivation): as traditional industries close, job
losses lead to less money in the area, with a 'knock-on' effect on other
businesses such as suppliers, shops, etc. More businesses are forced to close
and the problem becomes worse and worse. The most able workers move away to
other areas; the area becomes more run-down with high crime, vandalism etc. and
an ageing population.
Cycle of Deprivation: a sequence of events experienced by disadvantaged
people in which one problem e.g. lack of work, leads to other problems and so
makes things worse.
Cyclone: A very low pressure system that cause devastation, heavy
rainfall and low temperatures are known as cyclones. More on what is a cyclone.
Cyclones: A low pressure system area in which the wind blows spirally
