What is Geography?

“The Queen of Social Sciences”

Dream big…

• As a young man my fondest dream was to become a geographer. However, while working in the customs office I thought deeply about the matter and concluded that it was far too difficult a subject. With some reluctance, I then turned to physics as a substitute.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Unpublished Letters

Description

• Geography (from Greek, geographia, lit. "earth description") is the discipline that studies the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of the Earth.

• Official Definition...

• A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276-194 BC).

• Four historical traditions in geographical research are the spatial analysis of the natural and the human phenomena (geography as the study of distribution), the area studies (places and regions), the study of the man-land relationship, and the research in the earth sciences.

The Bridge between…

• Nonetheless, the modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline that foremost seeks to understand the Earth and all of its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical science". Geography is divided into two main branches: the human geography and the physical geography.

“Capes and Bays" geography??

• Many people have an out-of-date image of geography and think of it as only the study of quiz show-like descriptive facts, such as the highest mountains and largest cities (Golledge, 2001). Adena Schutzberg made this point on the All Points Blog about Geography Bees:

• "...this kid memorized all this "capes and bays" geography to get the award...I'm disappointed we holding [sic] to the notion that this is geography and what geographers do. Ever wonder why the Department of Labor is predicting we'll run out of trained geospatial folks in the coming years? Kids think this Geography Bee is what geography is all about!" (http://apb.directionsmag.com/archives/284-Geography-Bee-Winner.html)

• Even those that know that geography is more than just memorizing facts, still have the image that high technology in geography is an individual laboring over a drafting table making maps as it would have been done in the 1930s.

Figure 3: Map making in the 1930s. Many people still see geography in these terms. SOURCE: www.census.gov.

• Contrary to this outdated but prevailing image, geography and geographic thought is on the frontline of embracing cutting edge information technologies to develop methods of solving problems based on place. Using a toolset of technology and theory, a geographer uses place-based reasoning to solve some of our thorniest problems. The result is that, today, geographers are an ever increasingly important part of the decision making team in security and humanitarian activities.

The three-dimensional image of the New York City World Trade Center, developed using LIDAR data collected on September 17, 2001 in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, illustrates just one of the tools geographers have in their toolbox to serve the decision maker. The LIDAR data helped to produce 3-D images of the site where crews continue their recovery and cleanup efforts.

the Connections…• Traditionally, geographers have been viewed the same way as

cartographers and people who study place names and numbers. Although many geographers are trained in toponymy (study of place names) and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the spatial and the temporal distribution of phenomena, processes, and features as well as the interaction of humans and their environment. Because space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants and animals; geography is highly interdisciplinary.

Cause & Effect

• “...mere names of places...are not geography...know by heart a whole gazetteer full of them would not, in itself, constitute anyone a geographer. Geography has higher aims than this: it seeks to classify phenomena (alike of the natural and of the political world, in so far as it treats of the latter), to compare, to generalize, to ascend from effects to causes, and, in doing so, to trace out the laws of nature and to mark their influences upon man. This is 'a description of the world'—that is Geography. In a word Geography is a Science—a thing not of mere names but of argument and reason, of cause and effect. ”

• — William Hughes, 1863

Definition…

• What is the definition of geography? The Association of American Geographers defines geography as:

• Geography is the science of place and space. Geographers ask where things are located on the surface of the earth, why they are located where they are, how places differ from one another, and how people interact with the environment.

The Split

• Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main subsidiary fields: the human geography and the physical geography.

• The former largely focuses on the built environment and how humans create, view, manage, and influence space. The latter examines the natural environment, and how organisms, climate, soil, water, and landforms produce and interact.

• The difference between these approaches led to a third field, the environmental geography which combines the physical and the human geography, and looks at the interactions between the environment and humans.

The BIG picture

The Split Charted.

 Physical Geography  Human Geography

 Rocks and Minerals  Population

 Landforms  Settlements

 Soils  Economic Activities

 Animals  Transportation

 Plants  Recreational Activities

 Water  Religion

 Atmosphere  Political Systems

 Rivers and Other Water Bodies  Social Traditions

 Environment  Human Migration

 Climate and Weather  Agricultural Systems

 Oceans  Urban Systems

• Some of the phenomena studied in physical and human geography.

Human• Human geography is a branch of the

social sciences that studies the world, its people, communities, and cultures with an emphasis on relations of and across space and place.

• Human geography differs from physical geography mainly in that it has a greater focus on studying human activities and is more receptive to qualitative research methodologies.

• As a discipline, human geography is particularly diverse with respect to its methods and theoretical approaches to study.

• Examples of branches within Human Geography include: cultural, transportation, demography, geopolitics, urban and religious geography.

Human• Human geography is concerned with many of the critical aspects of human

activities, such as how people and their activity are distributed in space, how they use and perceive space, and how humans impact the places that make up the earth's surface. Figure 5 shows how a geographer can analyze population growth of an urban area.

Figure 5: This image combines three layers from the geographic information systems: roads, elevation, and highways to compare the number of roads in greater Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1990 and 2000. The analysis reveals significant urbanization of the area during the period. SOURCE: www.llnl.gov

Physical• Physical geography is that branch

of natural science which deals with the study of processes and patterns in the natural environment like the atmosphere, biosphere and geosphere, as opposed to the cultural or built environment, the domain of human geography.

• Physical geographers investigate the impact of weather, climate, land forms, vegetation, soils, and water bodies on human environments.

• The impact can be significant, or just spectacular, as in the example of a dust storm that bellowed across the city of Phoenix, USA on July 21, 2012. As the storm moved closer, the sky changed to a shade of orange until total darkness blanketed the ground. The storm passed over in about 45 minutes, leaving a heavy sheet of dust in its wake. Forecasters say the wall of dust may have reached 4,000 to 5,000 feet