Definitions of scholars of geography

1. Concept of GEOGRAPHY
I F FAT A R A
Lecturer
Dept. of Geomatics
PSTU

2. What is Geography?
Geography is that supreme science
which shows the earth in a
glimpse!
-Ptolemy

3. What is Geography?
Geography has been called the “WORLD DISCIPLINE” and the
bridge between the “Human and Physical Science”
“Geography is the original science”- Carl Ritter

4. Etymology
Eratosthenes firs used the word Geography in
combination of two Greek words:
“Geo” means Earth & “Graphia” means
Description

5. Definitions: Before 18th Century
Geography demonstrates the living beings of earth surface and aquatic world along
the explanation of the world characteristics. – Strabo
Varenius (1622): Geography is that part of mixed mathematics, which explains the
state of the earth and of its parts, depending on quantity, viz. its figure, place,
magnitude & motion, with the celestial appearance, etc.
Immanuel Kant (1724): Geography is the study of the earth. It explains the varieties
found in the various parts of the earth. In it (Geography) incidents and active
relations are considered specially important.

6. Definitions: 19th Century
Alexander Von Humboldt
Geography is the science related to nature… in it are studied and
described all things found on earth.
Carl Ritter
Geography is the department of science that deals with the globe in
all its features, phenomena, and relations as an independent unit,
and shows the connection of this unified whole with man and man’s
creator.

7. New Definitions: Hartshorne vs. Schaefer
Hartshorne (1939)
Geography is concerned to provide accurate, orderly, and rational
description and interpretation of the variable character of the
Earth’s surface.
Schaefer (1950)
Geography has to be conceived as the science concerned with the
formulation of the laws governing the spatial distribution of certain
features on the surface of the earth.
W h a t i s t h e m a i n d i f f e r e n c e ?

8. Other Modern Definitions
Ackerman (1965): The study of spatial distributions and space
relations on the earth’s surface
Taffee (1970): Geography is the study of spatial organization expressed
as patterns and processes.
Woolridge & East (1950): Geography concerns land & man.

9. Other Modern Definitions
Peter Haggett (1972): Geography is the science which examines the
structure and the mutual interaction of ecological systems and
spatial systems of the earth surface.
Smith (1977): Geography offers a broad synoptic view of spatial
relationship in human affairs.

10. Orthodox Definitions
Vidal de la Blache (1950): Geography is the science of places not of
men.
Sauer & Leighly(1932): Geography has never been the science of man,
but the science of the “LAND”, of the earth’s surface.
Monkhouse(1965): Geography comprises the study of the earth’s surface
in it’s areal differentiation as the home of man
Jan Broek (1965): Geography is the orderly knowledge of the diversity of
the earth as the world of man.

11. Marxist Definition
Peet (1977):
Marxist geography is that part of a whole science which deals with
the interrelationship between social processes on the one hand and
the spatial processes on the other hand

12. Lastly in a nutshell we can say….
Geography is the study of natural and
human constructed phenomena relative
to a special dimension.

13. Thank You All !