GEOGRAPHY

Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments.
Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human societies spread across
it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment, and the way that
locations and places can have an impact on people. Geography seeks to understand where things are
found, why they are there, and how they develop and change over time.
Ancient Geographers
The term "geography" comes to us from the ancient Greeks, who needed a word to describe the
writings and maps that were helping them make sense of the world in which they lived. In Greek, geo
means “earth” and -graphy means “to write.” Using geography, Greeks developed an understanding of
where their homeland was located in relation to other places, what their own and other places were like,
and how people and environments were distributed. These concerns have been central to geography ever
since.
Of course, the Greeks were not the only people interested in geography. Throughout human
history, most societies have sought to understand something about their place in the world, and the people
and environments around them.
Indeed, mapmaking probably came even before writing in many places. But ancient Greek
geographers were particularly influential. They developed very detailed maps of areas in and around
Greece, including parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. More importantly, they also raised questions about
how and why different human and natural patterns came into being on Earth’s surface, and why variations
existed from place to place. The effort to answer these questions about patterns and distribution led them
to figure out that the world was round, to calculate Earth’s circumference, and to develop explanations of
everything from the seasonal flooding of the Nile River to differences in population densities from place
to place.
During the Middle Ages, geography ceased to be a major academic pursuit in Europe. Advances
in geography were chiefly made by scientists of the Muslim world, based around the Arabian Peninsula
and North Africa. Geographers of this Islamic Golden Age created the world’s first rectangular map based
on a grid, a map system that is still familiar today. Islamic scholars also applied their study of people and
places to agriculture, determining which crops and livestock were most suited to specific habitats or
environments.
In addition to the advances in the Middle East, the Chinese empire in Asia also contributed
immensely to geography. Until about 1500, China was the most prosperous civilization on Earth. The
Chinese were scientifically advanced, especially in the field of astronomy. Around 1000, they also
achieved one of the most important developments in the history of geography: They were the first to use
the compass for navigational purposes. In the early 1400s, the explorer Cheng Ho embarked on seven
voyages to the lands bordering the China Sea and the Indian Ocean, establishing China’s dominance
throughout Southeast Asia.
Age of Discovery
Through the 13th-century travels of the Italian explorer Marco Polo, Europeans learned about the
riches of the interaction of different human and natural activities on Earth’s surface shape the
characteristics of the world in which we live.
Geography seeks to understand where things are found and why they are present in those places;
how things that are located in the same or distant places influence one another over time; and why places
and the people who live in them develop and change in particular ways. Raising these questions is at the
heart of the “geographic perspective.” China. Curiosity was awakened; a desire to trade with wealthy
Asian cultures motivated a renewed interest in exploring the world. The period of time between the 15th
and 17th centuries is known in the West as the Age of Exploration or the Age of Discovery.
With the dawn of the Age of Discovery, the study of geography regained popularity in Europe.
The invention of the printing press in the mid-1400s helped spread geographic knowledge by making

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maps and charts widely available. Improvements in shipbuilding and navigation facilitated more
exploring, greatly improving the accuracy of maps and geographic information.
Greater geographic understanding allowed European powers to extend their global influence.
During the Age of Discovery, European nations established colonies around the world. Improved
transportation, communication, and navigational technology allowed countries such as the United
Kingdom to successfully govern colonies as far away as the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Africa.
Geography was not just a subject that made colonialism possible, however. It also helped people
understand the planet on which they lived. Not surprisingly, geography became an important focus of
study in schools and universities.
Geography also became an important part of other academic disciplines, such as chemistry,
economics, and philosophy. In fact, every academic subject has some geographic connection. Chemists
study where certain chemical elements, such as gold or silver, can be found. Economists examine which
nations trade with other nations, and what resources are exchanged. Philosophers analyze the
responsibility people have to take care of the Earth.
Emergence of Modern Geography
Some people have trouble understanding the complete scope of the discipline of topic. Instead,
geography is concerned with many different topics—people, culture, politics geography because, unlike
most other disciplines, geography is not defined by one particular, settlements, plants, landforms, and
much more.
What distinguishes geography is that it approaches the study of diverse topics in a particular way
(that is, from a particular perspective). Geography asks spatial questions—how and why things are
distributed or arranged in particular ways on Earth’s surface. It looks at these different distributions and
arrangements at many different scales. It also asks questions about how
Exploration has long been an important part of geography. But exploration no longer simply
means going to places that have not been visited before. It means documenting and trying to explain the
variations that exist across the surface of Earth, as well as figuring out what those variations mean for the
future.
The age-old practice of mapping still plays an important role in this type of exploration, but
exploration can also be done by using images from satellites or gathering information from interviews.
Discoveries can come by using computers to map and analyze the relationship among things in
geographic space, or from piecing together the multiple forces, near and far, that shape the way individual
places develop.
Applying a geographic perspective demonstrates geography’s concern not just with where things
are, but with “the why of where”—a short, but useful definition of geography’s central focus.
The insights that have come from geographic research show the importance of asking “the why of
where” questions. Geographic studies comparing physical characteristics of continents on either side of
the Atlantic Ocean, for instance, gave rise to the idea that Earth’s surface is comprised of large, slowly
moving plates—plate tectonics.
Studies of the geographic distribution of human settlements have shown how economic forces
and modes of transport influence the location of towns and cities. For example, geographic analysis has
pointed to the role of the U.S. Interstate Highway System and the rapid growth of car ownership in
creating a boom in U.S. suburban growth after World War II. The geographic perspective helped show
where Americans were moving, why they were moving there, and how their new living places affected
their lives, their relationships with others, and their interactions with the environment.
Geographic analyses of the spread of diseases have pointed to the conditions that allow particular
diseases to develop and spread. Dr. John Snow’s cholera map stands out as a classic example. When
cholera broke out in London, England, in 1854, Snow represented the deaths per household on a street
map. Using the map, he was able to trace the source of the outbreak to a water pump on the corner of
Broad Street and Cambridge Street. The geographic perspective helped identify the source of the problem

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(the water from a specific pump) and allowed people to avoid the disease (avoiding water from that
pump).
Investigations of the geographic impact of human activities have advanced understanding of the
role of humans in transforming the surface of Earth, exposing the spatial extent of threats such as water
pollution by manmade waste. For example, geographic study has shown that a large mass of tiny pieces of
plastic currently floating in the Pacific Ocean is approximately the size of Texas. Satellite images and
other geographic technology identified the so-called “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”
These examples of different uses of the geographic perspective help explain why geographic
study and research is important as we confront many 21st century challenges, including environmental
pollution, poverty, hunger, and ethnic or political conflict.
Because the study of geography is so broad, the discipline is typically divided into specialties. At
the broadest level, geography is divided into physical geography, human geography, geographic
techniques, and regional geography.
Physical Geography
The natural environment is the primary concern of physical geographers, although many physical
geographers also look at how humans have altered natural systems. Physical geographers study Earth’s
seasons, climate, atmosphere, soil, streams, landforms, and oceans. Some disciplines within physical
geography include geomorphology, glaciology, pedology, hydrology, climatology, biogeography, and
oceanography.
Geomorphology is the study of landforms and the processes that shape them. Geomorphologists
investigate the nature and impact of wind, ice, rivers, erosion, earthquakes, volcanoes, living things, and
other forces that shape and change the surface of the Earth.
Glaciologists focus on the Earth’s ice fields and their impact on the planet’s climate. Glaciologists
document the properties and distribution of glaciers and icebergs. Data collected by glaciologists has
demonstrated the retreat of Arctic and Antarctic ice in the past century.
Pedologists study soil and how it is created, changed, and classified. Soil studies are used by a
variety of professions, from farmers analyzing field fertility to engineers investigating the suitability of
different areas for building heavy structures.
Hydrology is the study of Earth’s water: its properties, distribution, and effects. Hydrologists are
especially concerned with the movement of water as it cycles from the ocean to the atmosphere, then back
to Earth’s surface. Hydrologists study the water cycle through rainfall into streams, lakes, the soil, and
underground aquifers. Hydrologists provide insights that are critical to building or removing dams,
designing irrigation systems, monitoring water quality, tracking drought conditions, and predicting flood
risk.
Climatologists study Earth’s climate system and its impact on Earth’s surface. For example,
climatologists make predictions about El Nino, a cyclical weather phenomenon of warm surface
temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. They analyze the dramatic worldwide climate changes caused by El
Nino, such as flooding in Peru, drought in Australia, and, in the United States, the oddities of heavy Texas
rains or an unseasonably warm Minnesota winter.
Biogeographers study the impact of the environment on the distribution of plants and animals.
For example, a biogeographer might document all the places in the world inhabited by a certain spider
species, and what those places have in common.
Oceanography, a related discipline of physical geography, focuses on the creatures and
environments of the world’s oceans. Observation of ocean tides and currents constituted some of the first
oceanographic investigations. For example, 18th-century mariners figured out the geography of the Gulf
Stream, a massive current flowing like a river through the Atlantic Ocean. The discovery and tracking of
the Gulf Stream helped communications and travel between Europe and the Americas.

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 Today, oceanographers conduct research on the impacts of water pollution, track tsunamis, design
offshore oil rigs, investigate underwater eruptions of lava, and study all types of marine organisms from
toxic algae to friendly dolphins.
Human Geography
Human geography is concerned with the distribution and networks of people and cultures on
Earth’s surface. A human geographer might investigate the local, regional, and global impact of rising
economic powers China and India, which represent 37 percent of the world’s people. They also might
look at how consumers in China and India adjust to new technology and markets, and how markets
respond to such a huge consumer base.
Human geographers also study how people use and alter their environments. When, for example,
people allow their animals to overgraze a region, the soil erodes and grassland is transformed into desert.
The impact of overgrazing on the landscape as well as agricultural production is an area of study for
human geographers.
Finally, human geographers study how political, social, and economic systems are organized
across geographical space. These include governments, religious organizations, and trade partnerships.
The boundaries of these groups constantly change.
The main divisions within human geography reflect a concern with different types of human
activities or ways of living. Some examples of human geography include urban geography, economic
geography, cultural geography, political geography, social geography, and population geography. Human
geographers who study geographic patterns and processes in past times are part of the subdiscipline of
historical geography. Those who study how people understand maps and geographic space belong to a
subdiscipline known as behavioral geography.
Many human geographers interested in the relationship between humans and the environment
work in the subdisciplines of cultural geography and political geography.
Cultural geographers study how the natural environment influences the development of human culture,
such as how the climate affects the agricultural practices of a region. Political geographers study the
impact of political circumstances on interactions between people and their environment, as well as
environmental conflicts, such as disputes over water rights.
Some human geographers focus on the connection between human health and geography. For
example, health geographers create maps that track the location and spread of specific diseases. They
analyze the geographic disparities of health-care access. They are very interested in the impact of the
environment on human health, especially the effects of environmental hazards such as radiation, lead
poisoning, or water pollution.
Geographic Techniques
Specialists in geographic techniques study the ways in which geographic processes can be
analyzed and represented using different methods and technologies. Mapmaking, or cartography, is
perhaps the most basic of these. Cartography has been instrumental to geography throughout the ages.
As early as 1500 BCE, Polynesian navigators in the Pacific Ocean used complex maps made of
tiny sticks and shells that represented islands and ocean currents they would encounter on their voyages.
Today, satellites placed into orbit by the U.S. Department of Defense communicate with receivers on the
ground called global positioning system (GPS) units to instantly identify exact locations on Earth.
Today, almost the entire surface of Earth has been mapped with remarkable accuracy, and much
of this information is available instantly on the internet. One of the most remarkable of these websites is
Google Earth, which “lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D
buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean.” In essence, anyone can be a virtual
Christopher Columbus from the comfort of home.
Technological developments during the past 100 years have given rise to a number of other
specialties for scientists studying geographic techniques. The airplane made it possible to photograph land

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from above. Now, there are many satellites and other above-Earth vehicles that help geographers figure
out what the surface of the planet looks like and how it is changing.
Geographers looking at what above-Earth cameras and sensors reveal are specialists in remote
sensing. Pictures taken from space can be used to make maps, monitor ice melt, assess flood damage,
track oil spills, predict weather, or perform endless other functions. For example, by comparing satellite
photos taken from 1955 to 2007, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) discovered that the
rate of coastal erosion along Alaska’s Beaufort Sea had doubled. Every year from 2002 to 2007, about 45
feet per year of coast, mostly icy permafrost, vanished into the sea.
Computerized systems that allow for precise calculations of how things are distributed and relate
to one another have made the study of geographic information systems (GIS) an increasingly important
specialty within geography. Geographic information systems are powerful databases that collect all types
of information (maps, reports, statistics, satellite images, surveys, demographic data, and more) and link
each piece of data to a geographic reference point, such as geographic coordinates. This data, called
geospatial information, can be stored, analyzed, modeled, and manipulated in ways not possible before
GIS computer technology existed.
The popularity and importance of GIS has given rise to a new science known as geographic
information science (GISci). Geographic information scientists study patterns in nature as well as human
development. They might study natural hazards, such as a fire that struck Los Angeles, California, in
2008. A map posted on the internet showed the real-time spread of the fire, along with information to help
people make decisions about how to evacuate quickly. GIS can also illustrate human struggles from a
geographic perspective, such as the interactive online map published by the New York Times in May
2009 that showed building foreclosure rates in various regions around the New York City area.
The enormous possibilities for producing computerized maps and diagrams that can help us
understand environmental and social problems have made geographic visualization an increasingly
important specialty within geography. This geospatial information is in high demand by just about every
institution, from government agencies monitoring water quality to entrepreneurs deciding where to locate
new businesses.
Regional Geography
Regional geographers take a somewhat different approach to specialization, directing their
attention to the general geographic characteristics of a region. A regional geographer might specialize in
African studies, observing and documenting the people, nations, rivers, mountains, deserts, weather,
trade, and other attributes of the continent. There are different ways you can define a region. You can look
at climate zones, cultural regions, or political regions. Often regional geographers have a physical or
human geography specialty as well as a regional specialty.
Regional geographers may also study smaller regions, such as urban areas. A regional geographer
may be interested in the way a city like Shanghai, China, is growing. They would study transportation,
migration, housing, and language use, as well as the human impact on elements of the natural
environment, such as the Huangpu River.
Whether geography is thought of as a discipline or as a basic feature of our world, developing an
understanding of the subject is important. Some grasp of geography is essential as people seek to make
sense of the world and understand their place in it. Thinking geographically helps people to be aware of
the connections among and between places and to see how important events are shaped by where they
take place. Finally, knowing something about geography enriches people’s lives—promoting curiosity
about other people and places and an appreciation of the patterns, environments, and peoples that make
up the endlessly fascinating, varied planet on which we live.

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Defining Human Geography
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

The study of the interrelationships between people, place, and environment, and how these vary
spatially and temporally across and between locations. Whereas physical geography concentrates on
spatial and environmental processes that shape the natural world and tends to draw on the natural and
physical sciences for its scientific underpinnings and methods of investigation, human geography
concentrates on the spatial organization and processes shaping the lives and activities of people, and their
interactions with places and nature. Human geography is more allied with the social sciences and
humanities, sharing their philosophical approaches and methods.
Human geography consists of a number of sub-disciplinary fields that focus on different elements
of human activity and organization, for example, cultural geography, economic geography, health
geography, historical geography, political geography, population geography, rural geography, social
geography, transport geography, and urban geography. What distinguishes human geography from other
related disciplines, such as development, economics, politics, and sociology, are the application of a set of
core geographical concepts to the phenomena under investigation,
including space, place, scale, landscape, mobility, and nature. These concepts foreground the notion that
the world operates spatially and temporally, and that social relations do not operate independently of
place and environment, but are thoroughly grounded in and through them.
With respect to methods, human geography uses the full sweep
of quantitative and qualitative methods from across the social sciences and humanities, mindful of using
them to provide a thorough geographic analysis. It also places emphasis on fieldwork and mapping
(see cartography), and has made a number of contributions to developing new methods and techniques,
notably in the areas of spatial analysis, spatial statistics, and GIScience.
The long-term development of human geography has progressed in tandem with that of the
discipline more generally. Since the Quantitative Revolution in the 1950s and 1960s,
the philosophy underpinning human geography research has diversified enormously. The 1970s saw the
introduction of behavioural geography, radical geography, and humanistic geography. These were
followed in the 1980s by a turn to political economy, the development of feminist geography, and the
introduction of critical social theory underpinning the cultural turn. Together these approaches formed the
basis for the growth of critical geography, and the introduction of postmodern and post-structural thinking
into the discipline in the 1990s. These various developments did not fully replace the theoretical
approaches developed in earlier periods, but rather led to further diversification of geographic thought.
For example, quantitative geography continues to be a vibrant area of geographical scholarship, especially
through the growth of GIScience. The result is that geographical thinking is presently highly pluralist in
nature, with no one approach dominating.

CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY
The study of the relationship between culture and place.

In broad terms, cultural geography examines the cultural values, practices, discursive and
material expressions and artefacts of people, the cultural diversity and plurality of society, and how
cultures are distributed over space, how places and identities are produced, how people make sense of
places and build senses of place, and how people produce and communicate knowledge and meaning.
Cultural geography has long been a core component of the discipline of geography, though how it has
been conceived, its conceptual tools, and the approach to empirical research has changed quite markedly
over time.

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 In the late 19th century, cultural geography sought to compare and contrast different cultures
around the world and their relationship to natural environments. This approach has its roots in
the anthropogeography of Friedrich Ratzel and, in common with anthropology, it aimed to understand
cultural practices, social organizations, and indigenous knowledge, but gave emphasis to people’s
connections with and use of place and nature. This form of cultural geography was adopted, extended,
and promoted in North American geography in the early 20th century, especially through the  Berkeley
School and Carl Sauer. They were particularly interested in how people adapted to environments, but
more particularly how people shaped the landscape through agriculture, engineering, and building, and
how the landscape was reflective of the people who produced it.
While this form of cultural geography is still practised, it was challenged in the 1980s by new
thinking that created what has been termed ‘new cultural geography’, which led to a broader cultural
turn in the discipline. During this period, cultural geographers started to engage with new theoretical ideas
within social theory, including humanism, structuralism, post-structuralism, postmodernism, and post-
colonialism, recasting cultural geography in a number of significant ways. Most crucially, culture itself
was conceived as a fluid, flexible, and dynamic process that actively constructs society, rather than
simply reflecting it.
From the perspective of new cultural geography, landscape was not simply a material artefact that
reflected culture in straightforward ways, but was laden with symbolic meaning that needed to be
decoded with respect to social and historical context, using new techniques such as  iconography.
Similarly, it was contended that other cultural practices, artefacts, and representations needed to be
theorized and analysed in much more contextual, contingent, and relational ways, sensitive to the
workings of difference and power. Here, new cultural geographers argued that cultural identities are not
essentialized and teleological, but rather need to be understood as constitutive of
complex power geometries giving rise to all kinds of hydridity and diversity.
As a result, since the 1980s cultural geography has developed to examine the broad range of ways
in which culture evolves and makes a difference to everyday life and places. Studies have examined
the cultural politics of different social groups with respect to issues such
as disability, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality, and how the processes and practices
of othering, colonialism, imperialism, nationalism, and religion shape the lives of people in different
locales and contexts fostering senses of belonging and exclusion. Others have looked at how culture is
reflected and mediated through representations such as art, photography, music, film, and mass media,
and material cultures such as fashion, food, heritage, and memorials/monuments, as well as the practices
of creating knowledge and communicating through language. More recently still, a move towards non-
representational theory has developed the focus beyond representations. Through the cultural turn, there
has also been a move to explore how culture intersects with other forms of geographical inquiry such as
the economic and political, arguing that these domains are deeply inflected and shaped by cultural
processes. Consequently, cultural geography is one of the most vibrant fields in human geography today.

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