Cover: Human Geography for the AP® Course, 2nd Edition by Barbara Hildebrant; Seth Dixon; Kenneth Keller; Max Lu; Roderick P. Neumann

Human Geography for the AP® Course

Second  Edition©2025  Barbara Hildebrant; Seth Dixon; Kenneth Keller; Max Lu; Roderick P. Neumann

About

Table of Contents

Module 0: An Introduction to Human Geography
AP® Skills Workshop: Task Verbs


Unit 1: Thinking Geographically
Module 1: Introduction to Maps
Module 2: Geographic Data
Module 3: Spatial Concepts and Types of Diffusion
Module 4: Human-Environmental Interaction
Module 5: Scales of Analysis
Module 6: Regional Analysis
AP® Skills Workshop: Concepts and Processes


Unit 2: Population and Migration Patterns and Processes
Module 7: Population Distribution and Its Consequences
Module 8: Population Composition
Module 9: Population Dynamics
Module 10: The Demographic Transition Model
Module 11: Malthusian Theory
Module 12: Population Policies
Module 13: Women and Demographic Change
Module 14: Aging Populations
Module 15: Causes of Migration
Module 16: Forced and Voluntary Migration
Module 17: Effects of Migration
AP® Skills Workshop: Spatial Relationships


Unit 3: Cultural Patterns and Processes
Module 18: Introduction to Culture
Module 19: Cultural Landscapes
Module 20: Cultural Patterns
Module 21: Types of Diffusion and Their Historical Causes
Module 22: Contemporary Causes of Diffusion
Module 23: Diffusion of Language and Religion
Module 24: Effects of Diffusion
AP® Skills Workshops: Data Analysis


Unit 4: Political Patterns and Processes
Module 25: Introduction to Political Geography
Module 26: Political Geography
Module 27: Political Power and Territoriality
Module 28: Types and Functions of Political Boundaries
Module 29: Internal Political Boundaries
Module 30: Forms of Governance
Module 31: Challenges to State Sovereignty: Devolution and Supranationalism
Module 32: Consequences of Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces
AP® Skills Workshop: Source Analysis


Unit 5: Agriculture and Rural Land-Use Patterns and Processes
Module 33: Introduction to Agriculture
Module 34: Settlement Patterns and Survey Methods
Module 35: Agriculture Origins and Diffusions
Module 36: The Second Agricultural Revolution
Module 37: The Green Revolution
Module 38: Agricultural Practices and Economic Forces
Module 39: The Von Thunen Model
Module 40: The Global System of Agriculture
Module 41: Consequences of Agricultural Practices
Module 42: Challenges of Contemporary Agriculture
Module 43: Women in Agriculture
AP® Skills Workshop: Scale Analysis


Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes
Module 44: The Origin and Influences of Urbanization
Module 45: Cities Across the World
Module 46: Cities and Globalization
Module 47: The Size and Distribution of Cities
Module 48: The Internal Structure of Cities
Module 49: Density, Land Use, and Infrastructure
Module 50: Urban Sustainability
Module 51: Challenges of Urban Changes
Module 52: Challenges of Urban Sustainability


Unit 7: Industrial and Economic Development Patterns and Processes
Module 53: The Industrial Revolution
Module 54: Economic Sectors and Patterns
Module 55: Theories and Measures of Development
Module 56: Women and Economic Development
Module 57: Trade and the World Economy
Module 58: Changes as a Result of the World Economy
Module 59: Sustainable Development


Complete AP® Practice Exam
Glossary/Glosario

Barbara Hildebrant

Barbara S. Hildebrant received her Ph.D. in geography from Rutgers University. Barbara started her career at ETS in 1999 as an Assessment Specialist responsible for the launch of AP® Human Geography. She continued on to serve as the Senior Assessment Director for AP® Human Geography at ETS until her retirement in 2019. During her 20-year career with ETS, she served in myriad roles with countless responsibilities, but her first love and priority was AP® Human Geography. Barbara also led Development Committees, assisted Chief Readers at the annual Readings, reviewed and approved test questions, and met regularly with College Board representatives to ensure the AP® Human Geography exam met their rigorous standards. Prior to joining ETS, Barbara taught geography and anthropology at Rutgers University and Raritan Valley Community College.
Barbara has organized annual professional development workshops for AP® teachers through her work with NCGE, where she currently serves on the Board of Directors. She has presented papers at professional organizations around the world, and has published peer reviewed articles on AP® Human Geography for numerous publications. For her dedication to AP® Human Geography, Barbara received the Gilbert Grosvenor Honors for Geography Education from AAG in 2008, and in 2015 was honored with the George J. Miller Award for Distinguished Service to Geographic Education from NCGE. Barbara is a proud Mom to her two sons, Theodore and Charles. She enjoys world travel with her husband, Regan Vercruysse and taking her two English Springer Spaniels, Téo and Tessa, for long walks.

Seth Dixon

Seth Dixon has been a geography professor at Rhode Island College since 2009 and is currently serving as the department chair for the political science department. Previously he was the Chief Reader for the AP Human Geography exam and the coordinator for the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance. In 2000 he was teaching in junior high and returned to school to focus on teaching high education. After BYU, he received his doctorate from Penn State with the goal to teach pre-service teachers. In his time in graduate school, he researched the cultural and historical geographies of Mexico City's monuments. This research on differences in cultural landscapes and his emphasis on educational issues interests prepared him to work with organizations like National Geographic Education and the National Council for Geographic Education. He's been a reader in for AP Human Geography since 2005 and has enjoyed collaborations with ETS (Educational Testing Services) including various roles for the AP Human Geography program and NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress). Prior to being a professor, he was a children's librarian and still nurtures those librarian tendencies by cataloging, archiving, and curating digital resources on his website, geographyeducation.org.

Kenneth Keller

Kenneth H. Keller is an AP® Human Geography teacher at George Walton Comprehensive High School in Marietta, GA, and has been teaching the course since its inception in 2000. Ken has attended every AP® Human Geography reading since 2002, where he’s worked in multiple capacities, including his current role as question leader. He has taught AP® Human Geography weeklong summer institutes and one-day workshops for teachers since 2004, and was the 2004 recipient of a National Council for Geographic Education Distinguished Teaching award. Ken also taught as an adjunct professor of Geography for five years at Western Connecticut State University. He is a past member of the AP® Human Geography Test Development Committee (2006-2010) and served as President of the National Council for Geographic Education during the year 2019-2020. He is also Past-President of the Connecticut Council of Social Studies where he worked to promote social studies education at the state level. Ken is one of three co-founders of iScore5 LLC, an AP® test prep app for smart devices. Ken and his wife, Lisa, moved from Danbury, CT to Georgia in 2013, and though they prefer the beautiful Georgia weather, they brought their New Yorker roots (and Mets caps) with them.

Max Lu

Max Lu has been involved in AP® Human Geography for almost 20 years. He went to his first reading in 2003, the third year after the AP® Human Geography course was created. Since then he has gone to the reading almost every year, filling roles as a reader, table reader, and question leader. From 2007 to 2015, Max served on the College Board’s AP® Human Geography Test Development Committee and was co-chair for the final three years of his service. As a College Board-certified consultant, he has taught AP® Human Geography workshops and summer institutes around the country since 2007. Max received his BS and Master’s degrees in China and his doctoral degree from Indiana University. He is currently a professor in the Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences at Kansas State University. His research has dealt with such topics as population migration, rural population change, regional inequality, and the geography of methamphetamine labs. An interesting fact about his life as a geographer is that in the last 30 plus years, Max has lived at about 40°N in latitude in three different places: 6 years in Beijing, 6 years in Bloomington, Indiana, and then Manhattan, Kansas where he currently lives and teaches!

Roderick P. Neumann

Roderick P. Neumann is a professor of geography in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. He studies the complex interactions of culture and nature through a specific focus on national parks and natural resources. In his research, he combines the analytical tools of cultural and political ecology with landscape studies. He has pursued these investigations through historical and ethnographic research mostly in East Africa, with some comparative work in North America and Central America. His current research explores interwoven narratives of nature, landscape, and identity in the European Union, with a particular emphasis on Spain. His scholarly books include Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihoods and Nature Preservation in Africa (1998), Making Political Ecology (2005), and The Commercialization of Non-Timber Forest Products (2000), the latter coauthored with Eric Hirsch.