Geography as a discipline

The term Geography is derived from two roots in the Greek language: ‘Geo’ (earth) and Graphos (description). More formally, Geography is generally defined as a relationship between the earth’s physical environments with humans. Scholars define geography as, “the description of the earth as the abode of human beings”.

Geography receives data from all the natural and social sciences and attempts their synthesis. Geography is an Integrating discipline. All sciences, natural or social have one basic objective: understanding reality (the world and its phenomenon). Geography understands our reality in a spatial sense.

Geography as a discipline

Geography is mainly concerned with 3 sets of questions:

• What? Related to the identification of patterns of natural and cultural features over the earth’s surface.
• Where? Related to the distribution of natural and human/cultural features over the earth’s surface. It is distributional and locational aspects of natural and cultural features;
• Why? Related to explanation or casual relationships between features and the processes and phenomena. This makes Geography a Scientific discipline.

Relation between Physical Geography and Natural Sciences:

1. Traditional physical geography is linked with geology, meteorology, hydrology and pedology (soil=pedos).
2. Geomorphology, climatology, oceanography and soil geography respectively have very close links with the natural sciences as they derive their data from these sciences.
3. Bio-Geography is closely related to botany, zoology as well as ecology as human beings are located in different locational niches.
4. The problem of converting geoids into 2-D can be tackled by projections constructed graphically or mathematically.

Geography and social Sciences:

Every discipline has a philosophy which is raison d’etre (most important purpose: French) for the discipline. All natural and Social sciences have a strong interface with Geography, and all subjects have spatial aspects attached to them.

Approaches to study Geography:

There are mainly two types of approaches to study Geography: 

1. Systematic Approach: This approach is the same as that of general geography. It was introduced by Alexander Von Humboldt (German 1769-1859). A phenomenon studied over the world as a whole, and then identification of topologies or spatial patterns etc.
2. Regional Approach: Karl Ritter (German 1779-1859): According to the regional approach, the world is divided into regions at different hierarchical levels and then all geographical phenomena in a particular region are studied. These may be natural, political or designated regions. The phenomena in a region are studied in a holistic manner – searching for unifying factors.
3. Dualism is the main characteristic of geography. Depends the aspect emphasised in the study.

Branches of Geography (Based on systematic approach):

1. Physical Geography: Includes the study of the lithosphere, Atmosphere, Hydrosphere and Biosphere.
   • Geomorphology: devoted to the study of landforms, their evolution and related processes.
   • Climatology: Study of the Structure of the atmosphere and elements of weather and climates and climatic types and regions
   • Hydrology: Study the Realm of water over the surface of the earth including oceans, lakes, rivers and other water bodies and its effect on different life forms including human life and their activities.
   1. Soil Geography: a study of the process of soil formation, soil types, their fertility status, distribution and use.
2. Human Geography:
   • Social/Cultural geography: It is thestudy of society and its spatial dynamics as well as cultural elements contributed by society.
   • Population and Settlement Geography: Itstudies population growth, distribution, density, sex ratio, migration, occupational structure etc. Settlement geography studies the characteristics of rural and urban settlements.
   • Economic Geography: Studies economic activities of the people indulging agriculture, industry, tourism, trade, transport, infrastructure and services etc.
   • Historical Geography:  studies the historical processes through which the space gets organised. Every region has undergone some historical experiences before attaining its present-day status. The geographical features also experience temporal changes and these form the concerns of historical geography.
   1. Political Geography:  looks at the space from the angle of political events and studies boundaries, space relations between neighbouring political units, delimitation of constituencies, and election scenarios and develops a theoretical framework to understand the political behaviour of the population.
3. Biogeography: It isan interface between physical and human geography.
   • Plant Geography: studies the spatial pattern of natural vegetation in their habitat.
   • Zoo Geography: Spatial patterns and geographic characteristics of the animal and their habitat.
   • Ecology/Ecosystem: scientific study of habitats characteristic of species.
   1. Environmental Geography: concerns with environmental problems: land degradation, pollution and concerns for conservation.

Branches of Geography (based on Regional approach)

• Regional Analysis:
  1. Philosophy:
     • Geographical though
     • Land and Human interaction/ Human Ecology
  2. Methods and Techniques
     • Cartography including Computer cartography
     • Quantitative Techniques/ Statistical techniques
     • Field Survey Methods
     • Geo-informatics comprising techniques: Remote sensing, GIS, GPS etc.

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