HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
Introduction
What is Geography?

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
basically the…
WHY
of
WHERE?
Branches of Geography

There are three main branches of geography:
 Human
Geography
 Physical Geography
 Environmental Geography
Human Geography


Human geography is concerned with the spatial
aspects of human existence - how people and
their activity are distributed in space, how they use
and perceive space, and how they create and
sustain the places that make up the earth's surface.
Human geographers work in the fields of urban and
regional planning, transportation, marketing, real
estate, tourism, and international business.
Physical Geography


Physical geographers study patterns of climates,
land forms, vegetation, soils, and water. They
forecast the weather, manage land and water
resources, and analyze and plan for forests,
rangelands, and wetlands.
Many human and physical geographers have skills
in cartography and Geographic Information
Systems (GIS).
Environmental Geography


Geographers also study the linkages between
human activity and natural systems.
Geographers were, in fact, among the first scientists
to sound the alarm that human-induced changes to
the environment were beginning to threaten the
balance of life itself.
They are active in the study of global warming,
desertification, deforestation, loss of biodiversity,
groundwater pollution, and flooding.
All geographers study the
linkages, or
interdependency,
between human activity and
natural systems.
History of Geography


Note the relationship between the rise/decline of
empires and the rise/decline of geography.
Empires “need” geography when their “world” has
expanded, thus more studies are devoted to it.
 Geographic
inquiry!
Greek Geographic Thought
500 BCE to 500 CE

Eratosthenes
 Credited
with coining the term
“geography,” which literally means
“earth-writing.”
 Remarkably
accurate computation
of the earth’s circumference (error
of less than 2%!), which he based
on the angle of the sun at the
summer solstice and the distance
between the two Egyptian cities of
Alexandria and Syene.
Greek Geographic Thought
500 BCE to 500 CE

Ptolemy
 Published
Guide to Geography in the second century
BCE, which included rough maps of the landmasses, as
he understood them at the time, and a global grid
system.
The Chinese and Arab World
500 CE to 1500 CE

Chinese:
 During
Roman days, Chinese geographers knew as
much as Western geographers. The compass was
invented in China in the 11th century for navigation.

Muslim:
 Arab
geographers and librarians from about 7001400 CE translated the geographic works of the
Greeks and Romans, which later helped to spurn
European exploration during the Renaissance.
Western Europe
1500 CE to 1900 CE
 European
global exploration --need for good
navigation, knowledge about the world
 Expanding
empires of Spain, England, France,
Netherlands, Germany
 imperialism:
the extension of the power of a nation
through direct or indirect control of the economy and
political life of other territories
Rise of Modern Geography
 1700’s
-- Immanuel Kant (philosopher), Carl Ritter,
and Alexander von Humboldt stressed the
interdependence of people, plants, and animals.
 1800’s
-- “environmental determinism”
(Darwinian geography) where the environment
determines how people live.
 1900’s
-- the “quantitative revolution”
Geography’s Spatial Perspective

An intellectual framework that looks at:
 particular
locations of specific phenomena
 how and why that phenomena is where it is
 how it is spatially related to phenomena in other
places.
The Five Themes of the Spatial
Perspective





Location
Human-Environment Interaction
Region
Place
Movement
Location

Where something is on the earth and the effects
that position has on human life.
Location

Absolute location (mathematical)
 Latitude
& Longitude
 degrees,

minutes, seconds
Relative Location
 “place”
in relation to surroundings
 Site versus situation
 Site-
a place’s internal physical and cultural characteristics
 Situation- context
Location
Human-Environment Interaction

How human activities affect their environment and
how environmental changes impact human life.
 Positive
and negative effects of interaction
Region

Spatial units that share some similar characteristics.
Types of Regions

Formal Region


Functional Region


A type of region marked by a certain degree of
homogeneity in one or more phenomena; also called uniform
region or homogenous region. Examples: a country linked by
government, a climate region, a religious region.
Defined by the places affected by the movement of some
phenomenon from its source (node) to other places.
Examples: airline routes, area affected by a disease.
Perceptual Region

A region that only exists as a conceptualization or an idea
and not as a physically demarcated entity, e.g. in the US,
“the South” and “ the Mid-Atlantic region”
Place


Unique combination of physical and cultural attributes
that give each location on the earth its individual
identity.
Human components:
Religion
 Language
 Politics
 Artwork


Physical components
Climate
 Terrain
 Natural resources

Sense of Place


Feelings evoked by people as a result of certain
experiences and memories associated with a
particular place.
Questions to ask:
 Do
all places have a sense of place?
 Are some better than others? Do some places have a
stronger sense of place than others?
 What makes places more memorable than others?
 What environments do you remember best? Examples?
 Physical factors versus experiential factors.
Movement

Geographers analyze the movement occurring in
space:
 Information
 People
 Goods
 Other

phenomena
Spatial interaction- how places interact through
movement
Friction of Distance


Degree to which distance interferes with some
interaction.
Been reduced in many aspects of life with improved
transportation and communication technology.
 New
phenomenon: Space-time compression
 Increasing
sense of accessibility and connectivity that seems
to be bringing humans in distant places closer together.
Distance Decay

Pattern in which the
interaction between
two places declines as
the distance between
the two places
increases.