Summer Work

Summer Work 2020-21

Welcome to AP Human Geography. Congratulations, you have chosen to take one of the hardest classes available in the social studies realm. This upcoming year will be a new challenge for some of you for others it will be just another challenge. This class will be taught at a college level. It will involve learning concepts and theories that you may have never experienced before. This class will also require a tremendous amount of self-discipline and responsibility that many students have not experienced. Before you start your APHuG endeavor, it is important that you have a base knowledge of the places we will be discussing. Therefore, your summer work is to learn ALL of the current countries/states that exist. Currently, there are roughly 196 countries on Earth. This number will vary depending on what resource or site you use. I will use the United Nations and the CIA World Factbook as the major resource in identifying countries/states. To learn these countries/states, please utilize Sheppard Software, a free interactive website. The reason is quite simple, most students do not know where many countries/states are located. If you have a weak understanding of the basics of geography, then it would be hard to understand the why of where. In other words, it would be like looking up every individual word in the dictionary to read a book.

Therefore, your summer work for APHuG is to learn all of the countries/states on Earth. You will be tested over these every Friday for the first few weeks of school until we have completed the countries/states. I will not announce which region will be first. It might be the United States, it might be Central America, or it might even be the Middle East. Your first test will be the first Friday of the first full week of school.

Finally, please sign up for my remind at https://www.remind.com/join/98a68b

In addition to learning all the countries/states, you must be aware of the following places on this planet.

General Stuff

  • 5 Oceans
  • 7 continents
  • Equator
  • Tropic of Cancer
  • Tropic of Capricorn

Major Mountain Ranges

  • Himalayas
  • Rockies
  • Andes
  • Alps
  • Caucasus
  • Urals
  • Appalachian

Major Rivers

  • Rhine
  • Amazon
  • Yangtze
  • Mississippi
  • Ganges
  • Nile
  • Congo

Major Deserts / random other stuff

  • Sahara
  • Great Sandy Desert Australia
  • Gobi
  • Siberia

Major Bodies of Water

  • Great Lakes
  • Mediterranean Sea
  • Black Sea
  • Caspian Sea
  • Red Sea
  • Arabian Sea
  • South China Sea
  • Caribbean Sea
  • Aral Sea

Chokepoints

(Straits and Channels)

  • Strait of Gibraltar
  • Panama Canal
  • Suez Canal
  • Strait of Malacca
  • English Channel
  • Bosphorus & Dardanelles
  • Strait of Hormuz

Major World Cities

  • New York City
  • London
  • Tokyo
  • Paris
  • Cairo
  • Sydney
  • Sao Paulo
  • Johannesburg
  • Moscow
  • Hong Kong

Major World Cities (cont.)

  • Chicago
  • Beijing
  • Bombay (Mumbai)
  • Mexico City
  • Tehran
  • Washington D.C.
  • Lagos
  • Calcutta
  • Toronto
  • Singapore