Geography is a discipline concerned with understanding the

“Geography is a discipline concerned with understanding the spatial dimensions of environmental and social processes. ” Gilbert F. White, Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change (2002). “May a preselective bent toward geography be recognized before it asserts itself as deliberate election? The first, let me say most primitive and persistent trait, is liking maps and thinking by means of them. We are empty handed without them in lecture room, in study, in the field. Show me a geographer who does not need them constantly and want them about him, and I shall have my doubts as to whether he has made the right choice of life. ” (Sauer 1956, 288 -289)

https: //www. slideshare. net/aroj/historical-development-of-geography

1482 German map, still based on 2 nd century AD work of Ptolemy

1640 German map

The European Age of Discovery

VICTORY The Norwegian party pitched a tent as near to the actual pole as they could calculate. December 14, 1911

Alexander Von Humboldt 1802

Humboldt’s (1807) illustration, “Geography of plants in tropical countries: an image of nature on the Andes”

Alexander Von Humboldt

Voyage of HMS Beagle 1831 -1836

Founding of Geographical Societies

1874 Prussian government establishes a chair in geography at every university

1887 First reader in Geography appointed at Oxford University in the United Kingdom

1903 University of Chicago establishes first Department of Geography in the US

George Perkins Marsh 1801 -1882

Friedrich Ratzel 1844 -1904 Ellen Churchill Semple 1863 -1932 “The northern peoples of Europe are energetic, provident, serious, thoughtful rather than emotional, cautious rather than impulsive. The southerners of the subtropical Mediterranean basin are easy-going, improvident except under pressing necessity, gay, emotional, imaginative, all qualities which among negroes of the equatorial belt degenerate into grave racial faults. ” Influences of Geographical Environment, 1911: 620.

Paul Vidal la Blache 1845 -1918

More recently • 1960 s – Quantitative Revolution begins to supplant traditional regional geography • 1980 s+ GIS and remote sensing become increasingly important • 1990 s+ Discipline becomes increasingly fragmented and specialized.