Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
surface. … and human geography, where the focus is on the human
occupancy of this area.
D. T. Herbert and J. A. Matthews,
The Encyclopaedic
Dictionary of Environmental Change
(2001)
This is a fairly lengthy quote but other more succinct defi nitions
follow similar lines. The American geographer Edward Ackerman
focuses on the idea of a system and interaction between people
and nature:
The goal of Geography is nothing less than an understanding of
the vast interacting system comprising all humanity and its natural
environment on the surface of the Earth.
E. A. Ackerman, 'Where is a Research Frontier?' (1963)
Another American geographer expresses the grand sweep of
geography and its all-embracing character: here is a way to look at
the Earth in all its diversity:
Geography is the science of place, its vision is grand, its view is
panoramic. It sweeps the surface of the Earth, charting its physical,
organic and cultural domains.
Science
, review of Harm de Blij's
Geography Book
(1995)
The last two defi nitions, again from American geographers, stress
the scientifi c nature of geography and the interactive processes
that operate in space and the environment.
Geography is a discipline concerned with understanding the spatial
dimensions of environmental and social processes.
G. F. White,
Encyclopedia of Global
Environmental Change
(2002)
Geography is the study and science of environmental and societal
dynamics and society-environment interactions.
G. L. Gaile and C. J. Willmott,
Geography in America
(2003)
