81 of the Geography glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
A dome-shaped mass of glacier ice covering less than 50,000 km², usually over an upland or plateau, from which ice flows outwards in all directions.
A seasonal road built across frozen lakes, rivers, sea ice or tundra in winter, usable only while the ice is thick enough to carry vehicles.
A mass of glacier ice covering more than 50,000 km² of land, burying almost the whole land surface; the two present-day ice sheets cover Antarctica and Greenland.
An artificial glacier made in winter by piping and spraying stream water into cold air so that it freezes into a tall cone of ice, which melts slowly to supply water in spring.
The way a person or group understands who they are and how they belong, built from characteristics such as ethnicity, nationality, religion, language, gender and place; often multiple and changing.
The use of another person’s personal information without permission, usually to commit fraud such as opening accounts, borrowing money or making purchases in their name.
A cross-border movement of people, goods, services or money that is prohibited by law, such as human trafficking, the smuggling of narcotics or counterfeit goods, and illicit financial transfers.
Fishing that breaks national or international rules, is not reported to the authorities, or takes place where no rules apply, for example by stateless vessels.
A measure of a hazard's impact divided by the population of the area affected, such as deaths per 100,000 people, so that impacts on places of different size can be compared fairly.
A contract between a resource company and an Indigenous community setting out the jobs, training, payments and monitoring the community receives in return for supporting a project.
A surface such as tarmac, concrete or roofing that does not allow water to soak through it, so rainfall becomes overland flow.
A government limit on the quantity or value of a particular good that may be imported over a given period.
A development strategy in which a country protects and builds up domestic industries to replace imported goods, usually behind high tariffs and quotas.
Improving an informal settlement where it stands by providing infrastructure, services and secure tenure, instead of demolishing it and moving its residents elsewhere.
Meat produced by growing animal cells in a nutrient medium in bioreactors instead of raising and slaughtering animals; also called cultivated or cultured meat.
The physical difficulty of reaching a place because of barriers such as mountains, ice, sea ice, sand seas or a lack of roads, ports and airstrips, which may vary with the season.
The number of new cases of a disease in a population during a given period, often expressed per 1,000 or per 100,000 people per year.
The time between a person being infected with a pathogen and the appearance of the first symptoms of the disease.
A measure from 0 to 100 of how unevenly two groups are spread across the districts of a city, equal to the percentage of either group that would have to move for both to be evenly distributed.
A composite measure that combines weighted indicators of several domains of deprivation, such as income, employment, health, education, crime and housing, to rank small areas from most to least deprived.
The understanding, skills and practices developed by a local or indigenous community over many generations through close interaction with its environment, and passed on through culture and practice.
The descendants of the people who lived in a region before later settlers or states arrived, who keep distinct languages, cultures and ties to their land, such as the Inuit, Sámi or Tuareg.
An effect that follows from the direct damage of a hazard event, often later or further away, such as lost income, disease, interrupted schooling or disrupted supply chains.
A share of a total allowable catch held by an individual or company, which can be bought, sold or leased.
The increase in traffic that follows an increase in road capacity, because faster journeys encourage more and longer trips, so that congestion often returns.
A planned area of factories, warehouses and workshops, usually at the edge of a city near major roads, where firms share access roads and services.
A collaboration in which separate firms, usually located close together, exchange materials, energy, water and by-products, so that the waste or surplus of one becomes a resource for another.
The uneven distribution of income, wealth, resources or opportunities between people, groups or places, measured for example by the Gini coefficient.
A version of the HDI, published by the UNDP since 2010, that discounts each dimension for inequality between people, so that it falls further below the HDI the more unequal a country is.
The number of deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live births in a year.
The inability of a soil to support healthy plant growth because it lacks nutrients, organic matter or a suitable structure, or contains harmful levels of salt or other toxins.
The downward movement of water from the ground surface into the soil.
The maximum rate at which water can soak into a soil under given conditions, measured in mm per hour; it falls as the soil becomes wetter or more compacted.
An overabundance of information, both accurate and false, that spreads rapidly during an epidemic or other crisis and makes it difficult for people to find trustworthy guidance.
A visual summary of information that combines headline figures, charts, maps, icons and short text to communicate a message about an issue quickly.
Economic activity that is not registered, taxed or regulated by government, such as street trading or casual labour, with low, irregular pay and no legal protection.
An area of housing built without legal title to the land or planning permission, usually lacking secure tenure, safe water, sanitation and drainage; often called a slum.
The infrastructure and devices, such as cables, satellites, mobile networks, computers and smartphones, and the software and services used to store, process and transmit information.
The agreement of a person to take part in a survey or interview after being told its purpose, how the answers will be used and that they may decline.
The basic physical structures and networks a settlement needs to function, such as transport routes, water and sewerage pipes, power supply, waste facilities and telecommunications.
The right of foreign ships to sail through a state's territorial sea without stopping, provided they do not threaten its peace, order or security.
Interferometric synthetic aperture radar: a satellite technique that compares radar images taken at different times to map ground uplift or subsidence of a few millimetres over large areas.
A financial arrangement in which people or businesses pay regular premiums to an insurer, which pays for repairs and losses after an event such as a flood.
The part of the economic loss from a hazard event that insurance companies pay out to policyholders; it is usually a large share of losses in high-income countries and a small share in low-income countries.
An approach that plans and manages all the uses of a coastal area together, across land and sea and across sectors and levels of government, with the participation of all its stakeholders.
The coordinated planning of land and water across a whole drainage basin, regardless of administrative or national borders, involving all stakeholders and balancing economic, social and environmental goals.
A standardised five-phase scale, from Minimal (Phase 1) to Catastrophe or Famine (Phase 5), used by governments and agencies to classify the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition.
A process that coordinates the development and management of water, land and related resources to maximise economic and social welfare equitably without harming the sustainability of ecosystems.
The use of sensors, communications and data to manage traffic and public transport in real time, for example through adaptive signals, live passenger information and road pricing.
Farming that uses high inputs of labour, capital, fertiliser or technology per unit of land to obtain high yields from a relatively small area.
The capture and temporary storage of precipitation by vegetation before it reaches the ground; some intercepted water later evaporates and the rest drips or runs to the ground.
A relationship in which countries or places rely on each other, for example for trade, investment, energy or security, so that a change in one affects the others.
A warmer phase between glacial periods, lasting thousands to tens of thousands of years, when ice sheets retreat to roughly their present extent; the present interglacial is the Holocene.
A medium-sized city, usually of about 50,000 to 1 million people, that links rural regions with larger cities and holds a large and growing share of the world’s urban population.
The slow flow of glacier ice as individual ice crystals deform and slide past one another under the pressure of the ice above.
The heat generated inside the Earth by the radioactive decay of uranium, thorium and potassium isotopes, together with heat left over from the planet's formation.
Migration within the borders of one country, such as from a rural area to a city or from one region to another.
A person forced to leave their home by conflict, violence, human rights violations or disaster who has not crossed an internationally recognised border.
An organisation of tour companies, founded in 1991, that sets and enforces rules for safe and environmentally responsible private travel to Antarctica among its members.
A legally binding agreement, revised in 2005, under which states must detect, assess and report to the WHO any public health event that could spread across borders, and respond to it proportionately.
Migration across an international border, from one country to another, to live there for at least a year.
An international financial institution of 191 member countries, founded in 1944, that promotes monetary co-operation and financial stability and lends to countries facing balance-of-payments crises, with conditions.
A non-profit organisation, independent of governments, that operates in several countries to pursue humanitarian, environmental, development or human rights goals, such as Oxfam or Greenpeace.
The global governing body of the Paralympic movement, founded in 1989 and based in Bonn, which organises the Paralympic Games and sets classification rules.
The income threshold the World Bank uses to measure extreme poverty worldwide, set at US$3.00 a day per person in 2021 PPP dollars from June 2025.
Tourism that involves crossing an international border, either by residents travelling abroad (outbound tourism) or by non-residents visiting a country (inbound tourism).
The arrival of an overnight visitor in a country other than their country of residence; arrivals count trips rather than individual people.
An attitude of openness to and curiosity about other cultures, perspectives and global issues, combined with respect for others and a sense of responsibility for the wider world.
The ability of people to access, use and publish on the internet without censorship, shutdowns, unlawful surveillance or punishment for lawful online expression.
A network of physical objects, such as sensors, meters, vehicles and appliances, connected to the internet so that they can collect and exchange data without human input.
An intentional disruption of internet or mobile data access, or of particular online services, by a government or other authority, making them unavailable or unusable for a population or area.
A measure of spread equal to the difference between the upper and lower quartiles, covering the middle 50% of an ordered data set and unaffected by extreme values.
A barrier between a place of origin and a destination, such as distance, travel cost, a border, immigration laws or language, that makes migration more difficult.
The way food is shared among members of the same household, which can be unequal by gender, age or status, so that some members are undernourished even when the household has enough food.
An earthquake that occurs within a tectonic plate, far from a plate boundary, on an older zone of weakness.
A species introduced by human activity to an area outside its natural range, which spreads and harms native ecosystems, the economy or human health.
The artificial application of water to land to help crops grow, using canals, flooding, sprinklers, drip systems or pumped groundwater.
A map with lines (isolines) joining places of equal value of a continuously varying quantity, such as temperature (isotherms), rainfall (isohyets) or pressure (isobars).
A map showing lines that join places that experienced the same intensity of earthquake shaking.
A change in the level of the land relative to the sea, caused by the crust rising or sinking, for example under the weight of an ice sheet or after it melts.