Human Geography: Nature and Scope

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the fundamental definitions, elements of environment, and key theories in Human Geography based on the lecture notes.

Two major components of earth

Physical environment and life forms.

Core concern of geography

To understand the earth as home of man.

Eratosthenes

A Greek Geographer who lived in Alexandria during $276-194\,BCE$ and first used the term "Geography".

Geographic (word meaning)

Descriptive.

Elements of physical environment

Landforms, soils, climates, water, natural vegetation, flora, and fauna.

Elements of human (cultural) environment

Houses, villages, cities, road-rail network and industries, farms, and ports.

Mother Nature

In primitive societies, nature is a powerful force that is revered, worshiped, and conserved, providing the resources that sustain human life.

Human Geography

A branch of geography that studies the relationship between human beings and the earth.

Human Geography (Ratzel definition)

The synthetic study of relationship between human societies and earth’s surface.

Human Geography (Ellen C. Semple definition)

The study of the changing relationships between the unresting man and the unstable earth.

Sub-fields of human geography

Includes population geography, economic geography, social geography, political geography, gender geography, cultural geography, and historical geography.

Interdisciplinary nature of human geography

Human geography develops a close interface with sister disciplines in social sciences like economics, sociology, history, and political science to understand human elements on the earth's surface.

Technology (in human development)

Indicates the level of social and cultural development of nature; what humans produce is important, but how they produce using tools and technology is more important.

Naturalisation of humans

Also known as environmental determinism, a process in early stages of development where humans adapted themselves to and lived according to natural conditions and forces.

Scope of Geography

A field of study that is integrative, empirical, and practical, studying how all phenomena vary over space and the relationship between the natural environment and the human world.