1. Geography, Its Nature & Perspective

2. What is Human Geography?
The study of how people make places, how we organize space and society, how we interact with each other in places and across space, and how we make sense of others and ourselves in our locality, region, and world.

3. Geography is a spatial study
Geographers look at the way humans interact within and with their space.
Spatial – of or pertaining to space on or near the Earth’s surface
how are things organized on Earth?
how do they appear on the landscape?
why? where? so what?

4. in London’s Soho District
Spatial distribution
What processes create and sustain the pattern of a distribution?
Map of Cholera Victims
in London’s Soho District
in 1854.
The patterns of victim’s homes and water pump locations helped uncover the source of the disease.

5. Key Geographic Concepts
Location
Where is it?
Space
Patterns/regularities across Earth – depicted on maps; What is it like there?
Place
Unique location of everything on Earth; What makes a place unique?

6. Key Geographic Concepts cont…
Scale
truth is scale dependent, phenomena you study at one scale (e.g. local) may well be influenced by developments at other scales (e.g. regional, national, or global)
Pattern
e.g. migration patterns, diffusion of cultures, languages, religions etc.

7. Key Geographic Concepts cont…
Region
Areas formed by distinctive combinations of features; What do areas have in common?
Interconnections (Globalization)
Relationships of places and regions; How does one area relate to another?

8. History of Geography
Oldest existing map appears on clay tablet in Babylonia before 2000 B.C.
They developed 360 degrees circle system
Greek & Roman geographers measured (not always accurately) and devised a grid system of latitudes and longitudes

9. The First Geographers Eratosthenes (273-192 BC) Father of Geography
First to use term
Geographica
Calculated Earth’s circumference
Produced map of “Known World”

10. Eratosthenes’ Map

11. Ptolemy (2nd c. CE) created first index of locations using grids
Ptolemy’s Map
Ptolemy (2nd c. CE) created first index of locations using grids

12. Advances in Geography
al Idrisi – Muslim geographic compiler – master of “known world” c CE

13. Exploration - 12th to 18th c. Portugal leads early explorations
The astrolabe, caravel (ship) and compass assist mariners from Europe who must map what they find
In 1730, John Harrison discovered longitude
History of Geography
Discovery of Longitude

14. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)
Naturalist
Traveled extensively
Scientific descriptions
Focused on humanity’s interaction with nature
First to include humans as part of natural world

15. Carl Ritter (1779-1859) Developed concept of Regional Geography
Supported Environmental Determinism
[human behavior is determined by one’s physical environment]

16. Carl Sauer (1889-1975) Rejected “environmental determinism”
His ideas :
Cultural Landscape = visible imprint of human activity on the landscape
Cultural Landscapes
Possibilism = one’s natural environment only limits the range of choices available to a culture
Panda Pilgrim Debate