69 of the Geography glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
A zone of unfrozen ground within or beneath permafrost, usually under a lake or river; it may be closed, open or through.
A tax charged on imported goods, usually as a percentage of their value, which raises their price relative to domestically produced goods.
The legal use of tax laws and loopholes by individuals or companies to reduce the tax they pay, for example by recording profits in low-tax countries.
The illegal failure to pay tax that is owed, for example by hiding income, profits or assets from the tax authorities or giving false information.
A country or territory with very low or no taxes on certain kinds of income or wealth, often with financial secrecy, used by companies and individuals to reduce the tax they pay elsewhere.
A large, rigid slab of lithosphere that moves slowly over the asthenosphere, carrying oceanic crust, continental crust or both.
A link between a climate anomaly in one part of the world and changes in weather or climate in distant regions, transmitted through the atmospheric circulation.
A layer of the atmosphere in which temperature increases with height instead of decreasing, so cooler, denser air near the ground is trapped beneath warmer air and pollutants cannot disperse upwards.
A place that is used intensively for leisure for a short period, such as a festival or event site, before returning to its normal use and population.
Fragments of rock and solidified magma thrown into the air by an eruption, from fine ash to volcanic bombs.
A ridge of till that forms across a valley at the furthest point reached by a glacier's snout, marking its maximum advance.
The ratio of an index of a country’s export prices to an index of its import prices, multiplied by 100; a rise means that each unit of exports buys more imports.
The belt of sea up to 12 nautical miles from a state's baseline, over which the state has sovereignty, subject to the right of innocent passage of foreign ships.
Economic activities that provide services to people and businesses, such as retail, transport, health care, education, entertainment and tourism.
The line joining the deepest and fastest-flowing parts of a river channel along its course; it swings towards the outer bank on bends.
The increase in the volume of water as its temperature rises; as the oceans absorb heat, their expansion raises sea level.
The physical weathering of rock by repeated heating and cooling, which makes the outer layers expand and contract more than the interior, so they crack and peel away.
The layer of the ocean, between the warm mixed surface layer and the cold deep water, in which temperature falls rapidly with depth.
The large-scale circulation of the oceans driven by differences in seawater density, which depend on temperature and salinity; cold, salty water sinks at high latitudes.
An irregular landscape of hollows, mounds and thaw lakes formed when ice-rich permafrost thaws and the ground subsides.
A sealed pipe containing a fluid that passively removes heat from the ground in winter, evaporating at its lower end and condensing at its finned upper end; used to keep permafrost frozen.
The minimum number of users or customers needed to keep a service or facility economically viable.
The lateral movement of water downslope through the soil towards a river channel, sometimes concentrated in natural pipes.
The vertical difference in height between high tide and low tide at a place, from under 2 m on microtidal coasts to over 4 m on macrotidal coasts.
The periodic rise and fall of sea level, usually twice a day, caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth’s oceans.
Aid given on the condition that the recipient spends it on goods and services from the donor country.
Unsorted sediment of clay, sand, gravel and angular boulders deposited directly by glacier ice.
An instrument that measures very small changes in the slope of the ground, used on volcanoes to detect swelling as magma rises and deflation after it erupts or drains.
A lack of enough discretionary time for rest and leisure, because of long or irregular hours of paid work, commuting, and unpaid domestic and caring work.
The process by which faster transport, communication and flows of capital reduce the importance of distance and speed up economic and social life, so that places become more instantly interconnected.
The reduction over time in the travel time or cost between places as transport and communication improve, so that places become effectively closer together.
A critical threshold in the climate system beyond which a small further change triggers a large, self-sustaining and often irreversible shift to a different state, such as ice-sheet collapse.
A ridge of sand or shingle, formed by deposition, that joins an island to the mainland or to another island.
An approach in which decisions about water are made by central governments, agencies or large companies and implemented on users, usually through large-scale infrastructure.
A detailed large-scale map showing relief by contour lines and spot heights, together with rivers, settlements, roads, land use and a grid for locating places.
The maximum quantity of a fish stock that may be caught in a period, usually a year, set to keep the stock at a sustainable level.
The average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime if she experienced the age-specific fertility rates of a given year.
The activities of people travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year, for leisure, business or other purposes (UN Tourism definition).
Butler's model (1980) of how a tourist destination grows and changes through exploration, involvement, development, consolidation and stagnation, followed by decline, stabilisation or rejuvenation.
A place with a very high concentration of visitors relative to its size or resident population, at the local, regional or national scale.
A charge on visitors, usually per night of accommodation or on entry to a place, collected by a government to fund public services, conservation or the management of tourism.
The transformation of a place, especially a city neighbourhood, so that its housing, shops and services serve visitors rather than residents, often displacing local people.
A transport process in which the largest particles, such as boulders, are rolled or dragged along the river bed by the force of the flow.
The buying and selling of goods and services across international borders, recorded as exports (sales abroad) and imports (purchases from abroad).
A group of countries, usually in the same region, that agree to reduce or remove tariffs, quotas and other barriers to trade between them.
An economic conflict in which countries impose tariffs or other trade barriers on each other’s goods, each responding to the other’s measures with new ones.
The steady easterly winds blowing from the subtropical high-pressure belts towards the Equator, from the north-east in the northern hemisphere and the south-east in the southern hemisphere.
A condition in which the volume of traffic on a road network exceeds its capacity, causing slower speeds, longer and less predictable journeys and queues.
The tendency for a shared resource open to all to be over-used and degraded, because each user gains the full benefit of using more while the costs are shared by everyone.
Pollution that originates in one country and crosses one or more international borders through the air, rivers or ocean currents, causing damage in places outside the jurisdiction where it was released.
A river, lake or aquifer whose basin or extent crosses the borders of two or more countries, so that its use affects all of them.
A line across an area along which observations or measurements are made at intervals, to record how conditions change with distance.
The setting of prices for goods, services, loans or intellectual property traded between subsidiaries of the same TNC, which can be used to move profits to countries with lower taxes.
A plate boundary where two plates slide horizontally past each other along a fault, with no crust created or destroyed.
A mass movement in which material slides downslope along a roughly flat surface such as a bedding plane or joint.
A company that has its headquarters in one country and production, sales or other operations in two or more other countries; also called a multinational corporation.
The process in which migrants keep social, economic, cultural and political ties across national borders, living their lives in more than one country at once.
The loss of water vapour from plants to the atmosphere, mainly through the stomata in their leaves, after the water has been taken up from the soil by the roots.
The movement of eroded material by a river, waves, ice or wind, by traction, saltation, suspension or solution.
Official advice issued by a government to its citizens about the safety of travelling to another country or region, ranging from general caution to advice against all travel.
A graph shaped as an equilateral triangle that plots data made of three percentage components adding to 100%, such as employment by economic sector or soil texture.
The process by which people identify more strongly with narrow groups, such as an ethnicity, religion, region or political camp, and become more distrustful of other groups.
An intense, rotating low-pressure system over warm tropical oceans, with thunderstorms around a central eye and sustained winds of at least 119 km/h; called a hurricane, typhoon or cyclone by basin.
A series of waves caused by the sudden displacement of a large volume of water, usually by an earthquake on the sea floor, a landslide or an eruption.
A structure built to reduce the height or force of tsunami waves reaching the land, such as a seawall, breakwater or embankment, or a natural barrier such as a coastal forest or mangroves.
A network of seismometers, sea-level gauges and deep-ocean pressure sensors linked to warning centres that detect a possible tsunami and send alerts to coastal populations.
A treeless biome of high latitudes and high mountains in which low temperatures and a short growing season limit vegetation to mosses, lichens, grasses and dwarf shrubs, usually over permafrost.
The standard measure of container capacity, equal to one container 20 feet long and 8 feet wide; a 40-foot container counts as two units.
A tropical cyclone that forms in the north-west Pacific Ocean, west of the date line, with sustained winds of at least 119 km/h.