1. AP Human Geography Basic Background Knowledge List
Part of entering an AP class is an assumption of a certain level of background knowledge and skills. Please
review and be prepared to take an assessment the first two weeks of school in the fall relating to this list. The
assessment will be mastery based which means you can take the assessment multiple times but must attain 80%
or above to pass. The assessment will be primarily a matching identifying assessment – do not worry about
spelling. Don’t stress out about this, but do some review and familiarize yourself with this information. Think
of this knowledge as the ABC’s and 1,2,3’s of geography.
Basic map and atlas skills –
 Using an atlas to locate information
 Reading and interpreting a map
 Using latitude and longitude to locate and find places
Be able to locate on a map the following places-
General Stuff Major Deserts / random Major Mountain Ranges Major Rivers
 4 Oceans other stuff  Himalayas  Rhine
 7 continents  Sahara  Rockies  Amazon
 Equator  Great Sandy Desert  Andes  Yangtze
 Tropic of Cancer Australia  Alps  Mississippi
 Tropic of Capricorn  Gobi  Caucasus  Ganges
 Siberia  Urals  Nile
 Appalachian  Congo
Major Climate Regions- Chokepoints (Straits and Major Bodies of Water  Have some sense of
which parts of the world Channels)  Great Lakes development levels of
fit each category  Strait of Gibraltar  Mediterranean Sea regions? Rich (Highly
 Tropical  Panama Canal  Black Sea Developed),
 Dry  Suez Canal  Caspian Sea Developing (Middle
 Mild  Strait of Malacca  Red Sea Income), Poor (Less
 Continental  English Channel  Arabian Sea Developed)
 Polar  Bosphorus &  South China Sea  Know some cultural
Dardanelles  Caribbean Sea characteristics of
 Strait of Hormuz  Aral Sea regions – major
religions, languages,
ethnicities etc
Major World Regions Major World Cities Major World Cities Locate Countries on the
 Middle East  New York City  Chicago World Maps (from GGHS
 South East Asia  London  Beijing World History class)
 South Asia  Tokyo  Bombay (Mumbai)  Europe
 Sub-Saharan Africa  Paris  Mexico City  Central and Southern
 Sahel Africa  Cairo  Tehran America
 Latin America  Sydney  Washington D.C.  Western Asia
 Central America  Sao Paulo  Lagos  Eastern Asia
 Caribbean  Johannesburg  Calcutta  Northern Africa
 Western Europe  Moscow  Toronto  Southern Africa
 Eastern Europe  Hong Kong  Singapore
 Former USSR  Shanghai  Montreal Also
 Oceania  Los Angeles  Manila  Locate all 50 states in
 Dubai  New Orleans the USA
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