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The living world. A variety of ecosystems are spread across the world, each with distinctive interacting characteristics and components. They range from small (eg a freshwater pond) to global (eg...
- Hot Deserts
Discover the features and challenges of hot desert...
- Tropical Rainforests
Tropical rainforests have distinct characteristics that...
- Test Questions
Part of Geography The living world. Save to My Bitesize...
- Hot Deserts
- Overview
- Historical development of geography
geography, the study of the diverse environments, places, and spaces of Earth’s surface and their interactions. It seeks to answer the questions of why things are as they are, where they are. The modern academic discipline of geography is rooted in ancient practice, concerned with the characteristics of places, in particular their natural environments and peoples, as well as the relations between the two. Its separate identity was first formulated and named some 2,000 years ago by the Greeks, whose geo and graphein were combined to mean “earth writing” or “earth description.” However, what is now understood as geography was elaborated before then, in the Arab world and elsewhere. Ptolemy, author of one of the discipline’s first books, Guide to Geography (2nd century ce), defined geography as “a representation in pictures of the whole known world together with the phenomena which are contained therein.” This expresses what many still consider geography’s essence—a description of the world using maps (and now also pictures, as in the kind of “popular geographies” exemplified by National Geographic Magazine)—but, as more was learned about the world, less could be mapped, and words were added to the pictures.
To most people, geography means knowing where places are and what they are like. Discussion of an area’s geography usually refers to its topography—its relief and drainage patterns and predominant vegetation, along with climate and weather patterns—together with human responses to that environment, as in agricultural, industrial, and other land uses and in settlement and urbanization patterns.
The history of geography has two main parts: the history of exploration and mapmaking and the development of the academic discipline.
Britannica Quiz
Learn about human geography, physical geography and environmental geography in this BBC Bitesize geography guide for students aged 11 to 14.
Living history can be defined as an attempt by people to simulate life in another time. Generally, the other time is in the past, and a specific reason is given for making the attempt to live as other people once did. The reasons vary, but the three most common ones are: to interpret material culture.
Geography focuses upon Earth's features and conditions by asking where they are found (the spatial context, or location). Both history and geography, then, are methodologies —unique ways of thinking about our world and its events, conditions, patterns, and consequences.
Geography is the study of the physical and environmental aspects of the world, from a spatial perspective. Geography has two major subdivisions, human (social science) and physical (natural science).
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May 9, 2024 · Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments. Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment, and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people.
