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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glossary of geography terms (N–Z) | 11/21 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_geography_terms_(N–Z) | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:06:30.234613+00:00 | kb-cron |
sea lane Also sea road, seaway, or shipping lane. A navigable route across a wide waterway such as an ocean, sea, or large lake that is regularly used for maritime trade by large vessels or ships because it is safe, direct, and economical.
sea level The average level of the surface of one or more of Earth's oceans from which heights such as elevation and altitude are commonly measured. Often called mean sea level (MSL), it is a type of standardized geodetic vertical datum that is used in numerous applications, including surveying, cartography, and navigation. Mean sea level is commonly defined as the midpoint between the mean low and mean high tides at a particular location.
sea stack See stack.
seabed Also sea floor or ocean floor. The bottom of a sea or ocean. As with land terrain, the ocean floor may have ridges, mountains, valleys, and plains.
seaboard Any extensive region of land adjacent to the sea, broadly synonymous with coast or coastline.
seamount A mountain (often a volcano) rising from the ocean floor whose summit does not reach the water's surface and which is therefore entirely submerged and not an island or islet.
search space In human geography, the locations within an area where an individual or group searches for the resources necessary to meet their specific needs (e.g. for housing or employment), based on information from their current awareness space.
seaway See sea lane.
second home A seasonally occupied dwelling that is not the primary residence of the owner. Such residences are usually found in areas with substantial opportunities for recreation or tourist activity.
secondary-intercardinal directions The set of eight intermediate directions used in cartography and navigation, each of which is located halfway between a pair of intercardinal directions: north-northeast (NNE), east-northeast (ENE), east-southeast (ESE), south-southeast (SSE), south-southwest (SSW), west-southwest (WSW), west-northwest (WNW), and north-northwest (NNW). They may or may not be explicitly labeled on a compass rose.
secondary sector (secondary economic activity) That portion of a region's economy devoted to the processing of basic materials extracted by the primary sector; i.e. to the production of material goods.
sector principle The principle on which political claims to territory in the polar regions have historically been made, such that the territories are divided into arbitrary wedge-shaped sectors, each one having an apex at the geographic pole and including outer areas of both land and sea extending to a particular latitude. Because of the limited accessibility and generally low material value of both the Arctic and Antarctic, the sector principle has emerged as a means of formally sharing responsibility for these regions between the world's sovereign states.
sector theory Also sector model. The view that commercial, industrial, and especially residential areas in a city develop in 'sectors' or districts along lines of transport and communication, from the central business district outwards. In many urban areas the basic pattern of development often approximately follows this model, with industrial sectors developing along canals and railways, working-class housing developing near industrial sectors, and higher quality housing being built away from industrial zones but still in places with quick and convenient road access to other sectors.
sedimentary rock Rock formed by the hardening of material deposited in some process; most commonly sandstone, shale, and limestone.
seismograph A scientific instrument that detects and records vibrations (seismic waves) produced by earthquakes.
selva A dense equatorial forest, especially in the Amazon basin of South America.
sense of place Either the intrinsic character of a place or the meaning people give to it, or a mixture of both. This sense of meaning may include national, regional, or local identity or awareness, or emotional attachments formed between humans and the places they reside in or travel to. It is often the intangible characteristics of a particular place which are most important to mental representations of that place; these characteristics may be natural and unintentional, or may be consciously created or preserved through memorable or singular structures in order to give a place a distinctive identity.
serac Also sérac. A large block or pillar of glacial ice formed by the intersection of numerous crevasses where the glacier fragments as it reaches a steep slope. Seracs are usually found in icefalls, often in large numbers, in mountainous terrain.
settlement Also locality or populated place. Any place where people live and form communities; an inhabited or populated place. Settlements vary widely in size and complexity, from small clusters of dwellings to huge cities and metropolitan areas.
settlement pattern The spatial distribution of where humans inhabit the Earth.
shaded relief A type of relief mapping in which terrain features are drawn with colors proportional to their elevation or degree of slope, such that the shading of higher or steeper terrain is darker or lighter than the shading of lower or flatter terrain. This gives the map the illusion of three-dimensional relief, as if the depicted landforms were creating shadows due to illumination from an off-map light source.
shadow effect The phenomenon by which a large, well-served urban center affects the transport services of a nearby smaller town or city, often by drawing producers and consumers away from the smaller settlement and toward the larger one, causing the smaller settlement to be relatively ill-provided with direct services.
shakehole See doline.
shallows An area of water of relatively little depth, e.g. in a sea, lake, or river.
sheepback Also rôche moutonnée. A rock formation created by the passage of a glacier over underlying bedrock, which often results in asymmetrical erosional forms created by abrasion on the upstream side of the rock and plucking on the downstream side.
shelf sea A relatively shallow marginal sea, generally less than 300 metres (980 ft) deep, beneath which a portion of a continental shelf is submerged.
shield A broad area of very old rocks above sea level that is usually characterized by thin, poor soils and low population densities.