Geography

WHAT IS GEOGRAPHY ?

•  Geography is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of Earth.
• Geography’ derives from the Greek words Geo + graphy, a literal translation of which would be “to describe or write about the Earth”
• The first person to use the word “geography” was Eratosthenes (276–194 BC).
• The oldest known world maps date back to ancient Babylon from the 9th century BC.
• The best known Babylonian world map, however, is the Imago Mundi of 600 BC.

EVOLUTION OF GEOGRAPHY

Greek Geographers

• The early Greeks were the first civilization to practice a form of geography that was more than mere map making or cartography.
• The ancient Greeks saw the poet Homer as the founder of geography.
• His works the Iliad and the Odyssey contain a great deal of geographical information.
• Homer describes a circular world ringed by a single massive ocean. The works show that the Greeks by the 8th century BC had considerable knowledge of the geography of the eastern Mediterranean.
•  Aristotle (circa 384 – 322 BC) hypothesized and scientifically demonstrated that the Earth had a spherical shape.
• Thales of Miletus wondered about the shape of the world. He proposed that the world was based on water, and that all things grew out of it.
• Anaximander (c. 610 BC-c. 545 BC) is considered to be the true founder of geography.
• Anaximander was the first to conceive a mechanical model of the world.
• He was the first person to create a scale map of the known world.
• He introduced the gnomon to Ancient Greece.
• Anaximander was the first astronomer to consider the Sun as a huge mass, and consequently, to realize how far from Earth it might be, and the first to present a system where the celestial bodies turned at different distances.
• Herodotus’ ‘Histories’ contains a wealth of geographic descriptions covering much of the known world. Egypt, Scythia, Persia, and Asia Minor are all described, including a mention of India.
• Eratosthenes (276 BC– c. 195/194 B.C) invented the discipline of geography, including the terminology used today.
•  He was the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth, which he did by applying a measuring system using stadia, which was a standard unit of measure during that time period.
• He was also the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth’s axis. Additionally, he accurately calculated the distance from the Earth to the Sun and invented the leap day.
•  He created the first map of the world incorporating parallels and meridians, based on the available geographical knowledge of the era.
•  In his three-volume work ‘Geography,’ he described and mapped his entire known world, even dividing the Earth into five climate zones: two freezing zones around the pole, two temperate zones, and a zone encompassing the equator and the tropics.

Roman Geographers

• The early Roman thoughts on geography is known through quotations found in Strabo (64/63 BC – ca. AD 24).
• Strabo is most notable for his work Geographica (“Geography”), which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known to his era.
• Pliny the Elder’s (AD 23 – 79) ‘Natural History’ also has sections on geography.
•  Ptolemy (AD 90 – 168) is known for his astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest.
• He estimated the Sun was at an average distance of 1,210 Earth radii, while the radius of the sphere of the fixed stars was 20,000 times the radius of the Earth
•  In his is ‘Geography,’ he made a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world.
•  This manuscript was used by Christopher Columbus as the map for his westward-bound path to Asia, in which he discovered the hitherto unknown lands of the Americas.
•  Ptolemy devised and provided instructions on how to create maps both of the whole inhabited world and of the Roman provinces.

Indian Geographers

•  The Vedas and Puranas contain elaborate descriptions of rivers and mountains and treat the relationship between physical and human elements.
•  The Arthashastra, a compendium by Kautilya contains a range of geographical and statistical information about the various regions of India.
•  The composers of the Puranas divided the known world into seven continents of dwipas, Jambu Dwipa, Krauncha Dwipa, Kusha Dwipa, Plaksha Dwipa, Pushkara Dwipa, Shaka Dwipa and Shalmali Dwipa.
•  The Vishnudharmottara Purana (300-350 AD) contains six chapters on physical and human geography.
•  Varahamihira (505–587 A.D) was an Indian astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer who lived in Ujjain. He was one of the nine jewels of the court of legendary ruler Yashodharman Vikramaditya of Malwa.
•  Varahamihira’s main work is the book, titled ‘Pancha-Siddhantika,’ a treatise on mathematical astronomy.
• Pancha-Siddhantika summarizes five earlier astronomical treatises, namely the Surya Siddhanta, Romaka Siddhanta, Paulisa Siddhanta, Vasishtha Siddhanta and Paitamaha Siddhanta.
• Varahamihira was the first one to mention that the ayanamsa, or the shifting of the equinox is 50.32 seconds.
• His ‘Brihat-Samhita’ covers wide ranging subjects of human interest, including astrology, planetary movements, eclipses, rainfall, clouds, architecture, growth of crops, manufacture of perfume, matrimony, domestic relations, gems, pearls, and rituals.
•  The Romaka Siddhanta (Doctrine of the Romans) and the Paulisa Siddhanta (Doctrine of Paul) were two works of Western origin which influenced Varahamihira’s thought.
•  The mathematician-astronomer Aryabhatta gave a precise estimate of the earth’s circumference in his treatise ‘Aryabhatiya’.
•  The Aryabhatiya presented a number of innovations in mathematics and astronomy in verse form, which were influential for many centuries.
•  The extreme brevity of the text was elaborated in commentaries by his disciple Bhaskara I (Bhashya, c. 600 CE).
•  Aryabhatta accurately calculated the Earth’s circumference as 24,835 miles, which was only 0.2% smaller than the actual value of 24,902 miles.
•  Aryabhatta correctly insisted that the earth rotates about its axis daily, and that the apparent movement of the stars is a relative motion caused by the rotation of the earth, contrary to the then-prevailing view, that the sky rotated. This is indicated in the first chapter of the Aryabha?iya.
•  Aryabhatta described a geocentric model of the solar system, in which the Sun and Moon are each carried by epicycles. They in turn revolve around the Earth.
• The order of the planets in terms of distance from earth is taken as: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the asterisms.
• Solar and lunar eclipses were scientifically explained by Aryabhatta.
•  India’s first satellite Aryabhatta and the lunar crater Aryabhatta are named in his honour.

Arab Geographers

• Some of the important intellectuals in Arab geography were Al-Idrisi, Ibn Batuta, and Ibn Khaldun.
•  Al-Idrisi is best known for his skill at making maps and for his work of descriptive geography “The Pleasure Excursion of One Who Is Eager to Traverse the Regions of the World”.
•  Ibn Batuta and Ibn Khaldun are well known for writing about their extensive travels of North Africa and the Middle East.

Age of Discovery

• The Age of Discovery is an European historical period from the 15th century to the 18th century, during which lands previously unknown to Europeans were discovered.
• The Portuguese began systematically exploring the Atlantic coast of Africa from 1418, under the sponsorship of Prince Henry.
• In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias reached the Indian Ocean.
•  In 1492 the Spanish monarchs funded Christopher Columbus’s plan to sail west to reach the Indies by crossing the Atlantic. He landed on the Americas.
•  In 1498, a Portuguese expedition commanded by Vasco da Gama reached India by sailing around Africa, opening up direct trade with Asia.
•  In 1498, Columbus discovered the mainland of South America.
• Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer and navigator, discovered “America”. The name America is derived from Americus, the Latin version of Vespucci’s first name.
•  In 1522, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan led a Spanish expedition West, achieving the first circumnavigation of the world.
•  In 1769–70, James Cook circumnavigated New Zealand and also discovered the east coast of Australia from Cape Howe to Cape York.

Western Geographers of the Modern World

• Vernhard Varenius (1622-1650) wrote ‘Geographica Generalis’ that served as the standard treatise on systematic geography for more than a century.
•  Varenius suggested that the discipline of geography could be subdivided into physical and human geography.
•  Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) provided the philosophical underpinnings of geography. He recognized the following six branches: Physical, mathematical, moral, political, commercial, and theological geography.
•  Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer whose quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography.
•  Humboldt’s advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
•  His publication Kosmos (1844) examines the geology and physical geography of the Earth.
•  He was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular).
•  Along with Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter (1779-1859) is considered one of the founders of modern geography.
• Ritter’s masterwork, ‘Relation to Nature and the History of Mankind’ developed the theme of the influence of the physical environment on human activity.
• Ritter unfolded and established the treatment of geography as a study and a science.
• Viewing geography as an empirical science, he maintained that its methodology required proceeding from one observation to the next, not from opinion or hypothesis to observation.
•  Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) believed that geography was the study of the influences of the natural environment on people.
•  Ratzel is widely recognized as the founder of Human Geography. His important publication is ‘Anthropogeography.’
•  Ellen Churchill Semple (1863-1932) contributed significantly to the early development of the discipline of geography in the United States, particularly studies of human geography.
• She is most closely associated with work in anthropogeography and environmentalism, and the debate about ‘environmental determinism.’
•  Influenced by the works of Charles Darwin and inspired by her mentor Ratzel, Semple theorized that human activity was primarily determined by the physical environment.
•  Paul Vidal de la Blache (1848-1918) and Jean Brughes (1869-1930) developed what is known as the regional geography approach.

20th Century

•  In the West during the second half of the 19th and the 20th century, the discipline of geography went through four major phases: environmental determinism, regional geography, the quantitative revolution, and critical geography.
• Environmental determinism: It is the theory that a people’s physical, mental and moral habits are directly due to the influence of their natural environment.
•  Prominent environmental determinists included Carl Ritter, Ellen Churchill Semple, and Ellsworth Huntington.
• Regional geography: It is the study of world regions. Attention is paid to unique characteristics of a particular region such as natural elements, human elements, and regionalization which covers the techniques of delineating space into regions.
•  The regional geography paradigm has had an impact on many other geographical sciences, including economic geography and geomorphology.
• Quantitative revolution: It led to a shift from a descriptive (idiographic) geography to an empirical geography. The quantitative revolution occurred during the 1950s and 1960s.
• It marked a rapid change in the method behind geographical research, from regional geography into a spatial science.