GEOGRAPHY

Its Nature and Perspective

 AN
INTRODUCTION
1. The Greeks were the first society to introduce geography as a
subject. Eratosthenes is credited with being the first person to
use the word geography, geo meaning “Earth” and “graphein”
meaning “to write.”

2. The five themes of geography allow geographers to make

each place unique and to tie them together. Humans alter the
environment to meet their needs.
3. Diffusion is the spread or movement of a principle or
phenomenon. Relocation and expansion diffusion are means by
which an idea or phenomenon spreads. Expansion diffusion is
further broken down into contagious, stimulus, and
hierarchical diffusion.

4. There are three types of regions: formal, functional, and

perceptual/vernacular.
5. There are three main aspects of distribution: density,
concentration, and patterns. All are used to assist in
determining spatial characteristics of the landscape.
3. Diffusion is the spread or movement of a principle or
phenomenon. Relocation and expansion diffusion are means by
which an idea or phenomenon spreads. Expansion diffusion is
further broken down into contagious, stimulus, and
hierarchical diffusion.

4. There are three types of regions: formal, functional, and

perceptual/vernacular.
5. There are three main aspects of distribution: density,
concentration, and patterns. All are used to assist in
determining spatial characteristics of the landscape.
• Geography was reborn in Europe in 17th century as a broad study
of both physical landscapes and the roles that human play in
shaping them.
• The modern scientific study of geography began in Germany
during the 17th century, as European power began to slowly spread
over much of the globe.
• In the 1700s, the German philosopher and geographer Immanuel
Kant, defined geography as the study of interrelated spatial
patterns - the description and explanation of differences and
similarities between one region and another.
• As geography became more and more specialized throughout the
20th century, many sub fields emerge including cultural Social
Urban population medical economic and political geography.
• However, today the field may be divided into two great branches;
Physical and Human Geography.
• Human Geography focuses on people. It emphasizes people and
the way they interact with their natural environment.
• Physical geography focuses on the natural environment itself. For
example a physical geography might study mountains, glaciers,
coastline climates, soils, plants and animals.
• Geography is concerned with place and location - 2
concept that are inherently important parts of everyday
life.
• Geographers do have this kind of knowledge and they
can memorize and name all the rivers, lakes, cities and
countries of the world ,but
• Human geographers are much more interested in
understanding how those places shape and our shape by
people and what their location means in the past present
and future.
Some key concepts that's define geography a field of study are;

Location - the position of something on Earth's surface

Space - the physical gap or distance between two objects

Scale - the relationship between the size of an object or distance between

objects on a map and the size of the actual object or distance on Earth's
surface

Place - a specific point on Earth with human and physical characteristics

that distinguish it from other points
Some key concepts that's define geography a field of study are;

Pattern - the arrangement of objects on Earth's surface in relationship to

one another

Regionalization - the organization of the Earth's surface in two distinct

areas that are viewed as different from other areas

Globalization - expansion of economic political and cultural activities to

the point that they reach and have impact on man areas of the world.
• All of these concepts help you to understand
importance of spatial organization- the location of
places, people and events and the connections among
places and landscapes(the world appearance of an area
that is shaped by human and natural influences.
Geographers believed that the "why of where" is
critical-explanations for why a spatial pattern occurs.

• Several scientist describe the part of the known world,

and use the combination of mathematics, explorers
report, rumors and assumption to draw maps of the
world.
SOME FAMOUS
GEOGRAPHERS
ERATOSTHENES
 Eratosthenes

The first spot has to go to the man who coined the term geography,
Eratosthenes. He created one of the earliest maps of the known world
between 276-195 BC, but his greatest contribution was the concept of
latitude and longitude.
Eratosthenes came up with the word geography from the roots “geo”
(the earth) and “graphein” (to write). He was also the first man ever to
be able to calculate the size of the earth (with a minimal 2% error), the
earth’s axial tilt, and possibly even its distance from the sun. Even
without these other remarkable accomplishments, Eratosthenes would
still be notable as the man who coined geography.
PTOLEMY
 Ptolemy
A Greek scholar ho live 500 years later than Eratosthenes, recalculated
the circumference of the Earth to be much smaller- by about 9,000
miles. He was wrong, but his mistake was taken as truth for hundreds
of years.
Despite his famous miscalculation, his Guide to Geography included
many rough maps of landmasses and bodies of water, he developed a
global grid system that was a forerunner to our modern system of
longitude and latitude.
He’s just as famous for being
a cartographer as he is for a
geographer. A pre-
Renaissance Renaissance
man, Al Idrisi didn’t just
create the map of Eurasia and
north Africa found in the
Tabula Rogeriana, he also
wrote an extremely detailed
account of all of the
geographical features, ethnic
groups, socioeconomic
factors, and other features of
every area he drew.
 • His information was gleaned from interviews with visitors
to the areas he wrote about, as well as his own travels- in a
time period when few people traveled more than five or ten
miles from their homes, he had visited Spain, Portugal,
France, Anatolia, and England by age sixteen, and traveled
even more extensively later in life.
• The Tabula Rogeriana is his most famous work of
geography and cartography, and was created for King
Roger II of Sicily.
GEORGE PERKINS
MARSH

“Conserve the earth

or live to pay the
disastrous
consequences”
• U.S. diplomat, scholar, and conservationist whose greatest
work, Man and Nature (1864), was one of the most
significant advances in geography, ecology, and resource
management of the 19th century.
• He focused on the impact of human actions on the natural
environment.
• He emphasized human destruction of the environment, and
used the conversion of ancient Mesopotamia from a
“Fertile Crescent” to a vast barren dessert.
 CARL SAUER

American geographer who was

an authority on desert studies,
tropical areas, the human
geography of American Indians,
and agriculture and native
crops of the New World.
 His methods of landscapes analysis
provided a lens for interpreting cultural
landscapes as directly and indirectly altered
over tme as a result of human activity.
His study is basic to environment
geography, a field that centers on the
interaction of human and physical
geography.
Thanks!