Geography: Encyclopedia II - Geography - Structure of geography

Geography - Structure of geography

William Hughes - who taught the geography of the Holy Lands to divinity students at King's College London - defined geography in an address in 1863:

This was a specific rejection of geography as a merely descriptive discipline and also defined it as inclusive of both the physical world and the human. Within the discipline, however, there are many areas of specialism. Modern geographers tend to specialise in one of the broad branches (or sub-branches). However, most introductory geography syllabuses seek to ensure that geographers have at least working knowledge of the main focus of each branch of the subject.

Geography - Physical geography

Physical geography (or physiogeography) focuses on geography as an Earth science. It aims to understand the physical layout of the Earth, its weather and global flora and fauna patterns. Many areas of physical geography make use of geology, particularly in the study of weathering and sediment movement. Physical Geography can be divided into the following broad categories:

• Geomorphology
• Hydrology
• Glaciology
• Biogeography
• Climatology
• Pedology (soil study)
• Coastal/Marine studies
• Geodesy
• Palaeogeography
• Environmental Geography and management
• Landscape ecology

Exact lines between these different areas are often difficult to draw. Sometimes Oceanography is included as a branch within physical geography, but is now considered a separate subject in its own right.

Related topics: Atmosphere - Archipelago - Continent - Desert - Island - Landform - Ocean - Sea - River - Lake - Ecology - Soil - Timeline of geography, paleontology - Geostatistics - Environmental science - Oceanography - Environmental studies

Geography - Human geography

Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with various environments. It encompasses human, political, cultural, social, and economic aspects. While the major focus of human geography is not the physical landscape of the Earth (see Physical geography) it is hardly possible to discuss human geography without referring to the physical landscape on which human activities are being played out, and environmental geography is emerging as a link between the two.

Human geography can be divided into broad categories, such as:

• Economic geography
• Development geography
• Population geography or Demography*
• Urban geography
• Social geography
• Behavioral geography
• Cultural geography
• Political geography, including Geopolitics*
• Historical geography
• Regional science (Regional geography)
• Tourism geography
• Strategic geography
• Military geography
• Feminist geography

* Distinction between these fields of study have become increasingly blurred over time and the above list should not be considered definitive.

Related topics: Countries of the world - Country - Nation - State - Personal union - Province - County - City - Municipality - Central place theory - Urban morphology

Geography - Socio-environmental geography

During the time of environmental determinism, geography was defined not as the study of spatial relationships, but as the study of how humans and the natural environment interact. Though environmental determinism has died out, there remains a strong tradition of geographers addressing the relationships between people and nature. There are two main subfields of socio-environmental geography:

• cultural and political ecology (CAPE) and
• risk-hazards research.

Cultural ecology grew out of the work of Carl Sauer in geography and a similar school of thought in anthropology. It examined how human societies adapt themselves to the natural environment. Sustainability science has been one important outgrowth of this tradition. Political ecology arose when some geographers used aspects of critical geography to look at relations of power and how they affect people's use of the environment. For example, an influential study by Michael Watts argued that famines in the Sahel are caused by the changes in the region's political and economic system as a result of colonialism and the spread of capitalism.

Research on hazards began with the work of geographer Gilbert F. White, who sought to understand why people live in disaster-prone floodplains. Since then, the hazards field has expanded to become a multidisciplinary field examining both natural hazards (such as earthquakes) and technological hazards (such as nuclear reactor meltdowns). Geographers studying hazards are interested in both the dynamics of the hazard event and how people and societies deal with it.

Geography - Historical geography

This branch seeks to determine how cultural features of the multifarious societies across the planet evolved and came into being. Study of the landscape is one of many key foci in this field - much can be deduced about earlier societies from their impact on their local environment and surroundings.

"Historical Geography" can indeed refer to the reciprocal effects of geography and history on each other. But in the United States, it has a more specialized meaning: This is the name given by Carl Ortwin Sauer of the University of California, Berkeley to his program of reorganizing cultural geography (some say all geography) along regional lines, beginning in the first decades of the 20th Century.

To Sauer, a landscape and the cultures in it could only be understood if all of its influences through history were taken into account: Physical, cultural, economic, political, environmental. Sauer stressed regional specialization as the only means of gaining expertise on regions of the world.

Sauer's philosophy was the principal shaper of American geographic thought in the mid-20th century. Regional specialists remain in academic geography departments to this day. But many geographers feel that it harmed the discipline in the long run: Too much effort was spent on data collection and classification, and too little on analysis and explanation. Studies became more and more area specific as later geographers struggled to find places to make names for themselves. This probably led in turn to the 1950s crisis in Geography which nearly destroyed the subject as an academic discipline in the United States.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Structure of geography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki