BSEH SS Geography cheat sheet

Human geography studies the relationship between human societies and the physical environment; its core concepts are space, place, region, scale and diffusion.

Population density = total population ÷ total land area (persons per sq km); arithmetic density differs from physiological density = population ÷ cultivable land.

Doubling time is estimated by the Rule of 70: 70 ÷ annual growth rate (%) gives approximate years for population to double.

Natural increase = birth rate − death rate (per 1,000); migration balance must be added to get actual growth.

Demographic Transition Model stages: high stationary (high BR/DR), early expanding (DR falls), late expanding (BR falls), low stationary (both low), declining (BR below DR).

Push factors drive migration away (unemployment, war, famine); pull factors attract (jobs, better services, safety); intervening obstacles reduce flow.

Settlement types: compact/nucleated, dispersed, and linear; site refers to local physical setting, situation to regional position relative to surroundings.

Von Thünen's model places intensive farming near market and extensive farming far away because transport cost rises with distance.

Economic activities classified as primary (extraction), secondary (manufacturing), tertiary (services), quaternary (knowledge) and quinary (decision-making).

India's 2011 Census recorded a population of about 1.21 billion, a decadal growth rate near 17.7 per cent and a sex ratio of 943 females per 1,000 males.

Literacy rate 2011 was about 74 per cent (male ~82%, female ~65%); Kerala had the highest literacy among states.

Population density 2011 was about 382 persons per sq km; Bihar and West Bengal were among the densest large states, Arunachal Pradesh the lowest.

India's demographic dividend arises from a large working-age (15–59) share; dependency ratio = dependent population ÷ working-age population × 100.

Sectoral shift: primary sector still employs the largest share of workers, while tertiary sector contributes the largest share of GDP.

Major crop belts: rice in high-rainfall east and coastal areas, wheat in Punjab–Haryana–western UP, cotton in black-soil Deccan, tea in Assam and Nilgiris.

Industrial regions include Mumbai–Pune, Hugli, Bengaluru–Chennai, Gujarat and Chotanagpur; iron and steel centres cluster near coal, iron ore and limestone.

National highways are numbered separately from state highways; Golden Quadrilateral links Delhi–Mumbai–Chennai–Kolkata; NH-44 is India's longest highway.

Urbanisation is measured as urban population ÷ total population × 100; million-plus cities grew fastest after 1991 liberalisation.

Map scale: statement (1 cm = 10 km), representative fraction (1:1,000,000) and graphical (bar) scale are interconvertible; RF has no units.

Large-scale maps show small areas in detail (e.g., 1:10,000); small-scale maps show large areas with less detail (e.g., 1:1,000,000).

Enlargement/reduction factor = new scale denominator ÷ old scale denominator; a factor above 1 means reduction.

Contour lines join points of equal elevation; closely spaced contours indicate steep slope, widely spaced indicate gentle slope, and V-shape pointing upstream marks a valley.

A cross-section (profile) is drawn by transferring contour intersections along a line to graph paper and plotting elevation against distance.

Arithmetic line graphs plot continuous data over time; bar graphs compare discrete categories; pie charts show parts of a whole as percentages of 360°.

Mean = sum of values ÷ number of values; median is the middle value in ordered data; mode is the most frequent value.

Data interpretation steps: read axes and units, identify trends or outliers, then compute required ratios or percentages rather than guessing from shape.

Remote sensing uses electromagnetic radiation reflected or emitted by objects; GIS layers spatial data, and GPS gives absolute location by satellite triangulation.