Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The Scope of Geography
and character of places and features on the landscape. As civi-
lization evolved, however, geography slowly became an aca-
demic discipline with numerous specialized subfields. Scien-
tists became experts in areas such as geology, meteorology,
ecology, and human cultural differences. Interest in geography
grew especially between the 15th and 19th centuries when ex-
plorers such as Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan,
James Cook, Charles Darwin, and Lewis and Clark began to
investigate parts of the world that were previously unknown
to people of European descent (including Americans). These
explorers, as well as many others, brought detailed descrip-
tions of exotic places and animals to a keenly interested pub-
lic. The new knowledge and perspectives gained from this
time provided a major driving force for the development of
the modern world.
The trend toward increased specialization in geography
has continued to the present time. Most geographers gener-
ally consider themselves primarily either physical or human
specialists. Within these two broad fields are a range of geo-
graphical subdisciplines, as shown in Figure 1.1a. Although
each of these subfields has a unique focus, such as soils or
agricultural land use, geographers draw from many of these
subfields when they analyze any particular spatial pattern. For
example, to fully understand human settlement patterns in Af-
rica, it is important to consider the interaction of subfields such
as climatology, soils, and vegetation. In turn, to understand the
nature of soils in any given place, you must consider the effects
of climatology, vegetation, geomorphology (Figure 1.1b), and
perhaps even regional cultural practices.
When most people are asked to describe the nature of geog-
raphy, a common response is that the discipline focuses pri-
marily on the locations of countries, capital cities, rivers, and
oceans. They also assume that most of the work geographers
do involves maps of some kind. Although such an understand-
ing of the discipline is accurate to some degree, the field actu-
ally encompasses
far
more than the average person realizes.
In fact, geography is a discipline that is highly relevant to
everyday life in a myriad of ways, ranging from analysis of
traffic patterns to importation of economic goods, migration
of ethnic groups, cost of gasoline, and earthquake hazards, to
name a very few. In addition to maps, geographers use a fas-
cinating array of techniques and technologies to conduct their
work, such as computer models, field reconnaissance, personal
interviews, satellite imagery, global positioning systems, and
even shovels.
Geography, a word derived from the Greek words for
“Earth description,” is an ancient discipline that examines the
spatial attributes of the Earth's surface and how they differ from
one place to another. The concept of geography has likely been
important to the human experience for tens of thousands of
years. It is easy to imagine, for example, that prehistoric hunt-
ers and gatherers were intimately aware of their surroundings,
including the location and character of forests, streams, lakes,
berry patches, migrating animal herds, and competing groups
of people. In short, this
geographical awareness
would have
been absolutely essential for people to sustain themselves and
their communities. It would also have been critically important
to pass this awareness on to future generations so that they, in
turn, could successfully compete for resources.
So, for thousands of years at least, geography was a de-
scriptive discipline that focused on the generalized location
Ecology
Geology
Climatology
Remote sensing
Agricultural land use
Soils
Biogeography
Hazard assessment
Regional development
Physical
Geography
Biogeography
Economic geography
Geography
Physical
Marine geography
Cultural geography
Human
Geomorphology
Meteorology
Geomorphology
Historical geography
Soils
Medical geography
Climatology
Hydrology
Environmental
geography
Geographic information
systems
Political geography
(a)
(b)
Figure 1.1 Subdisciplines of geography.
(a) The field of geography can be broadly subdivided into physical and human geography.
Many subfields occur within these two broad categories, with many that overlap. (b) Physical geography itself overlaps with several other
areas of science. Many of these areas require a good understanding of chemistry and physics as well.
