AP Human Geography is an introductory college-level human geography course. Students cultivate their understanding of human geography through data and geographic analyses as they explore topics like patterns and spatial organization, human impacts and interactions with their environment, and spatial processes and societal changes.
This is the core document for this course. Unit guides clearly lay out the course content and skills and recommend sequencing and pacing for them throughout the year. The CED was updated in the summer of 2020 to include scoring guidelines for the example questions.
This resource provides a succinct description of the course and exam.
Learn more about the CED in this interactive walk-through.
Excerpted from the AP Human Geography Course and Exam Description, the Course at a Glance document outlines the topics and skills covered in the AP Human Geography course, along with suggestions for sequencing.
This document details the updates made to the course and exam description (CED) in September 2019. It includes printable copies of the updated pages, which can be used as replacement sheets in your CED binder. Note: It does not include the scoring guidelines, which were added to the online CED in the summer of 2020.
This document details how each of the sample free-response questions in the course and exam description (CED) would be scored. This information is now in the online CED but was not included in the binders teachers received in 2019.
Based on the Understanding by Design® (Wiggins and McTighe) model, this course framework provides a clear and detailed description of the course requirements necessary for student success. The framework specifies what students must know, understand, and be able to do, with a focus on big ideas that encompass core principles, theories, and processes of the discipline. The framework also encourages instruction that prepares students for advanced geography coursework and active global citizenship.
The AP Human Geography framework is organized into seven commonly taught units of study that provide one possible sequence for the course. As always, you have the flexibility to organize the course content as you like.
Exam Weighting (Multiple-Choice Section)
Unit 1: Thinking Geographically
Unit 2: Population and Migration Patterns and Processes
Unit 3: Cultural Patterns and Processes
Unit 4: Political Patterns and Processes
Unit 5: Agriculture and Rural Land-Use Patterns and Processes
Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes
Unit 7: Industrial and Economic Development Patterns and Processes
The AP Human Geography framework included in the CED outlines distinct skills that students should practice throughout the year—skills that will help them learn to think and act like geographers.
Exam Weighting (Multiple-Choice Section)
Exam Weighting (Free-Response Section)
1. Concepts and Processes
Analyze geographic theories, approaches, concepts, processes, or models in theoretical and applied contexts
2. Spatial Relationships
Analyze geographic patterns, relationships, and outcomes in applied contexts
3. Data Analysis
Analyze and interpret quantitative geographic data represented in maps, tables, charts, graphs, satellite images, and infographics
4. Source Analysis
Analyze and interpret qualitative geographic information represented in maps, images (e.g., satellite, photographs, cartoons), and landscapes
5. Scale Analysis
Analyze geographic theories, approaches, concepts, processes, and models across geographic scales to explain spatial relationships