Da VIP Academy / GED / Social Studies / Geography & Source Reasoning
Maps, Regions & Migration
Read map features and explain why people and settlements locate where they do.
How it works
Map basics
Use the legend for symbols, the scale for distance, and the compass rose for direction. A political map shows borders; a physical map shows landforms; a thematic map shows one variable such as population density.
Push and pull factors
People leave places because of push factors (few jobs, violence, disaster) and move toward pull factors (work, family, safety, schools). The Great Migration moved millions of Black Americans north and west for jobs and to escape Jim Crow.
Worked examples
Why did cities like St. Louis and Chicago grow in the early 1900s?
- Industrial jobs pulled workers.
- Jim Crow and farm collapse pushed people out of the South.
- Rail lines connected the two.
Words to know
- Push factor
- A condition driving people to leave a place.
- Great Migration
- The 20th-century movement of Black Americans out of the rural South.
Test-day tips
- • Cities almost always start where transportation meets water.