UNIT 1

FOUNDATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY

Structure
1.1 Introduction 1.4 Branches and Sub Branches
Expected Learning Outcomes of Geography
1.2 Geography as an Geographical Traditions
Institutionalised Discipline
Branches and Sub-Branches of
1.3 Geography and its Place in the
Geography
Classification of Knowledge
1.5 Summary
The Beginning: Classification of
1.6 Terminal Questions
Knowledge
1.7 Answers
Geography as Science 1.8 References and Further
Geography as Social Science Reading
Geography as Integrative
Science/Science of Synthesis

1.1 INTRODUCTION
You have studied geography at various levels right from your school. Some of
you may have studied it at the bachelor’s degree level also. Let’s recall some
of the topics we studied as part of our school curriculum. You would fondly
remember topics such as ‘The Universe’, ‘Our Solar System’, ‘Earth and its
Motions’, ‘Weather and Climate’, ‘Mountains, Plains and Plateau’,
‘Vegetations’, ‘Human Settlements’, ‘Population’ and so on. Our college
curriculum comprised many sub-branches of physical and human
geographies: geomorphology, climatology, economic geography, political
geography and many more, including regional geographies and the
geography of India or the concerned State where our college was located.
We learnt about maps, making and interpreting them and in the process also
became familiar with the trail and travesties of the great explorers and
travellers who found out continents, islands and people who lived there,
informing us that we were not alone on this planet earth, much the same way
as our planet earth is part of the solar system that has other planets as well.
The explorers not only found the sea and land routes connecting various
continents but also the relative locations and distances from their places of
origin. Thus the knowledge of places and people led to the science of ‘what is

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where’, the foundational question that shaped the development of the
discipline of geography. The descriptions of places and people noted that the
earth was not uniform and that there were huge variations over the surface
features both natural and human. The next foundational question was ‘why
and how does one understand the variation?’ The sequence and scope of
questions gradually became much larger as we attempted to find answers to
‘what is where and how’. Geography as a scientific discipline has risen from
encyclopedic, descriptive narration to searching for causality and generating
laws- nomothetic. Geography, like other branches of knowledge has been
changing, though its focus on human-environment interrelationships, which
are complex and dynamic, remains central.

In simple terms, geography studies the earth, environment and people in

relation to one another as they go on to produce a variety of human, socio-
cultural and economic landscapes over space and time. It is a vast discipline
in its content and extent as its subject matter includes extensive physical and
human properties and experiences in their spatial and temporal settings. In
doing so, the discipline borrows concepts and subject matters from other
physical/environmental and biological sciences as well as social sciences and
humanities into its framework of methodology. Thus, geography has had a
long tradition of interdisciplinary synthesis. It addresses the questions of ‘what
is where’ first and also advances explanations of ‘what is where’ with causal
relationships through the questions of why and how things may have come to
exist across space and time. It also studies phenomena with reference to
what it may have been in the past, what it is currently and what are the likely
future scenarios of change or what it is likely to become. Hence, it is not only
descriptive, but it is also explanatory due to its capability of explanation with
integration and synthesis.

It is considered as an integrating discipline or science of synthesis due to its

nature of being a science as well as a social science. It is because geography
includes the study of natural phenomena, it derives the subject matters from
the natural science disciplines like geology, meteorology, hydrology,
pedology, zoology, human ecology, and environmental science under
physical geography for its sub-branches like geomorphology, climatology,
hydrology and oceanography, soil geography, biogeography and
environmental geography, respectively. It also borrows subject matters from
the social science disciplines like economics, political science sociology and
anthropology, demography, etc. for its sub-branches economic geography,
political geography, social and cultural geography, and population geography,
much the same way as has been the case with the discipline of history since
its early days, and with all branches of knowledge that have gradually begun
to borrow from one another. No discipline is complete by itself and geography
and history have for long contributed through spatial and temporal synthesis.
Geography also blends the subject matters and methodology from different
science and social science disciplines as an applied science/discipline like
urban and regional planning, disaster management, rural and urban studies,
and natural resource management. Its modern tools and techniques are very
strong and widely accepted across disciplines with a wide range of
applicability like geospatial techniques (remote sensing, GIS, GPS and digital
cartography) for solving real-world problems related to various environmental
and human aspects over space.
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In this Unit, you are going to study how geography emerged as an
institutionalised discipline in the field of knowledge. You will also study the
place of geography in the classification of knowledge. Finally, this Unit will
also give you a brief of the branches and their sub-branches of geography-
systematic and regional, and physical and human in their various
combinations along with geographical traditions, which have been ever-
changing and growing.

Expected Learning Outcomes

After studying this unit, you should be able to:
 explain how geography was established as an institutionalised
discipline;
 describe geography and its place in the classification of knowledge;
 explain geography as a science, geography as a social science and
geography as an integrating discipline; and
 discuss the branches and sub-branches of geography under regional
and systematic, and physical and human along with various
geographical traditions.

1.2 GEOGRAPHY AS AN INSTITUTIONALISED

DISCIPLINE
The institutionalisation of a discipline means the establishment of a discipline
within the structure of formal education, with clear objectives and purpose,
academic standards, theory, methodology and field of study.
“Institutionalisation of geography meant that examinations with national
standards had to be organised and the discipline defined as a subject area
with a distinct content. This ‘new’ geography for which syllabuses and reading
lists were drawn up, led to professionalisation of people calling themselves
geographers” (Holt-Jensen, p. 41).

Geography formally came into existence as an institutionalised discipline in

the 19th Century. The foundation was laid down a thousand years back with
the contributions of Greek, Roman and Arab geographers like Homer, Thales
of Miletus, Anaximander, Hecateus, Herodotus, Aristotle, Eratosthenes,
Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Strabo, Al-Biruni, Ibn-Battuta and Ibn-Khaldun, etc. In
India, there are also traces of geographical descriptions found in ancient
scriptures like Vedas and Epics. In addition, the improved astronomical works
by Indian astronomers and travellers accounts have contributed to geography
in India (Ali, 1966).

It was from the contributions of Bernhard Varenius and Emmanuel Kant who
took geography closer to a formal discipline, which was further supplemented
by voyages, explorations and discoveries. The beginning of formalisation
started from the work of Varenius (Geographia Generalis, 1650), where
geography made a departure from cosmography to geography as it focused
only on earth by clearly separating it from the astronomical studies of the
heavens or cosmography (Unwin, p. 66). He clearly stated the discipline into
two branches- general and special. He attempted to include general
principles/laws and theories in geography to guide it as a science discipline.
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In doing so, he divided general geography into three parts- absolute (body of
the earth and its constituents- lands, rivers, etc. with their properties like
geometry and movements), respective or relative (effects of celestial
phenomena on the earth) and comparative parts (spatial variations of the
properties) (Unwin, p. 67).

Early Geographers

Homer (900 BC-701 BC) was a Greek poet with his writings on historical
geography and classification of winds. Thales (6-7 century BC) was the first
to give geometry theorems, measuring the earth and determination of
locations on the earth. His other contributions are in cosmology and
prediction of solar eclipse. Anaximander (610 BCE – 546 BCE), a disciple of
Thales, invented the instrument ‘Gnomon’, a pole set for the measurement of
the sun like sun dial, preparation of world map to scale and foundation of
mathematical geography. Hecataeus was a Greek geographer, who wrote
the book Ges-periodos (Peridos-ges) as the first systematic description of the
earth.

Strabo Plato Homer Thales Hippocrates Eratosthenes Ptolemy

Herodotus (c. 485-425 BC), despite being a Historian, documented the

events in geographical settings with explanations for their existence. He was
of the belief of flat earth and was least interested in mathematical and
astronomic problems. Plato (428-348 BC) was the first scholar to propose the
concept of spherical earth located in the centre of the Universe. Aristotle
(384-322 BC), a teleologist, followed inductive reasoning in the collection of
knowledge through observed facts formulating the fundamental principles of
scientific explanation. He also gave the idea of varying inhabitability of the
Earth with varying latitudes ‘ekumene’. Hipparchus (190-125 BCE) invented
an instrument ‘astrolab’ to determine latitude in the seas.

Eratosthenes (276-194 BC) was a librarian who calculated the earth

circumference with significant precision. His major contribution was the use
of coordinate systems with latitudes and longitudes for locating places and
measuring distance. Strabo (64 BC-20 AD), a Roman geographer, wrote a
17 volume book ‘Geographia’, which is a major contribution in the field of
political geography.

Ptolemy (AD- 90-168) contributed mainly by his eight volumes of Ptolemy’s

Geography explaining the principles of calculation of dimension of earth and
with its division in degrees, latitudes and longitudes and geography of
different parts of the world with calculated latitudes and longitudes of places.

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), an Arab geographer, wrote the historical

geography of various empires. Al Idrisi (1099-1180) did work on the division
of climatic zones better than Greek geographers. Al-Biruni (973-1039), an
Arab traveller and geographer, wrote 27 books on geography (cartography,
geodesy, climatology, comets, meteors and surveys) including Kitab-al-Hind.
He measured longest and shortest distance of the moon and the earth.

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According to Hartshorne, geography was not established as a university
discipline until the division of natural and social sciences into separate
faculties despite being a very old subject. Despite significant progress in
geography, the regular departments of geography were first established in
Germany in the 1870s and 1880s and a little later in France. It took a little
longer to find a place in Great Britain and the United States during the early
20th Century.

Till the 1830s, a number of geographical societies were established in Europe

like the Geographical Society of Berlin, Paris and London followed by the
creation of university chairs of geography, especially after the 1870s, which
were a major force in the institutionalisation of geography. In Germany, Berlin
emerged as the centre of geography. Berlin Geographical Society was
established in 1828 with the impetus received from Alexander von Humboldt.
During this time, Carl Ritter became the first professor at the University of
Berlin and continued as the chair professor of geography since 1820. The
Society also focused on financial support and extensive exploration during the
1860s. The chairs of geography continued to be established in various
universities (in 1871 in Leipzig, in 1873 in Halle, etc.) in continuation with the
discipline receiving its recognition as a subject at the university and school
level. It further received support from the Prussian Government’s (Prussia, a
former German State in the northern and central part extending upto the
Baltic Sea, was the largest and most influential part of the German Empire at
the end of the Franco-Prussia War during the 1870-71) decision for the
establishment of geography chairs in all the state universities. “In 1874, an
event of major importance took place in Berlin. The Prussian Government
decided to establish a chair of geography (to be occupied by a scholar with
the rank of professor) in each of the Prussian universities…Prussia’s action
was followed elsewhere in the newly unified Germany” (Martin & James, p.
165). Friedrich Ratzel was appointed as chair in Munich in 1875 and
Ferdinand von Richthofen as professor of geography in Bonn in 1877. By
1914, Germany had 23 chairs of geography, which was a significant
development in terms of the establishment of geography as a university
subject in German universities.

In France, geography was initially integrated with history until about the last
quarter of the 19th century. Some initiatives to establish a geography chair
started in 1809 in Sorbonne in Paris and the Paris Geographical Society was
formed in 1821. However, the subject did not receive its due here as the
second Paris chair was established almost after eight decades in 1892. In the
1850s, geography teaching was started in schools with its inclusion in primary
school syllabi for developing children’s power of observation. In 1857 the
subject got recognition in the universities for preparing geography teachers
(Unwin, 1992, p. 81). After the 1870s, it got momentum with the emergence of
a number of geographical societies with a major focus on colonial expansion.

A notable contribution during this time came from Vidal de la Blache, who
contributed as the chair of geography from 1875 at the University of Nancy in
France. He founded the Annales de Geographie in 1892. He gave the idea of
Possibilism reflected through genre-de-vie indicating the lifestyle or way of
life of any particular region, which is the reflection of a combination of entire
physical and human factors of that particular region. From the government

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also, there was support for geography teaching at the university level with
structured texts and atlases to meet the requirements of geography teachers.

In Great Britain, the Royal Geographical Society was founded in 1830 mostly
by non-geographers with military importance. Later on, the involvement of
scientists and sponsorships for scientific explorations aiming for the
documentation of geographical knowledge through the collection of new facts
and discoveries accelerated the subject. “Geography was promoted this time
mainly in order ‘to serve the interests of imperialism in its various aspects
including territorial acquisition, economic exploitation, militarism and the
practice of class and race domination” (Hudson, 1977 quoted in Unwin, p. 84).
They expanded their explorations in resource-rich regions of Africa, Asia and
Canada. During the initial days of the establishment of various universities,
geography was not a subject until the 1880s. Initially, geography was clubbed
with geology as ‘Geology and Physical Geography’ and later on separated
from Geology and clubbed with ‘Geography and Ethnology.’ In 1869, it
became an independent discipline as Geography. Overshadowed by
geologists, it struggled to receive its singular identity in the universities until
the late 19th century when Halford Mackinder was appointed as a reader at
Oxford in 1887 with sponsorship from the Royal Geographical Society, who
successfully carried forward the regional and political geography. Similarly,
J.Y. Buchanan at Cambridge popularised physical geography in England.

In the USA, the American Geographical and Statistical Society of New York
was established in 1851 with a central concern of exploration and economic
integration of the USA. It was greatly influenced by German geography. It had
considerable teleological Christian religious influence in shaping the
geographers of mid-19th century American geography (Unwin, p. 86).
Although the first department was established in 1818 in the name of the
Department of Geography, History and Ethics in the United States Military
Academy with the sole strategic purpose, after the geographical activities in
military establishments, US Geological and Geographical Survey was
established in 1879 in the Department of Interior subsequently removing the
term ‘’Geographical’. The subject grew very closely with geology in its initial
institutional development. The first chair of geography was founded in the
year 1854 at Princeton University with Arnold Guyot as a Chair Professor. At
other universities, the subject was included in the Department of Geology with
an emphasis on physical geography. The first known geographer, William
Morris Davis, was also in the Department of Geology and Geography at
Harvard since 1890. The first PhD in Geography was awarded in 1903 in the
USA from the University of Chicago.

The geographical societies were simultaneously established across the world

– in Mexico in 1833, in Brazil in 1838 and in Russia in 1845. Russian
geographers are not on the list of well-known geographers, particularly in the
English-speaking world and western and central Europe. M.V. Lomonosov
was appointed the head of the world’s first officially named Department of
Geography located in the Russian Academy of Science in the Eighteenth
century only (1758). It is recorded that there was a long history of
geographical work, but due to the language barrier, its reach among
geographical scholars of Western Europe and the USA got delayed for many
decades and could not become as popular as the German geographers

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(Martin and James, pp. 230-231). V.V. Dokuchaiev became the first professor
of geography at St. Petersburg in 1885. D.N. Anuchin also established
geography as a major university subject during this time along with framing
curricula for primary and secondary schools. He was appointed as the head of
the newly created Department of Geography and Ethnography at Moscow
State University in 1887. Though geography started much earlier in different
faculties, in 1919, two independent departments came into existence- the
Department of Geography and the Department of Anthropology.

In India, there have been few geographical writings and much came through
the travelogues of foreign travellers, which also remained unknown until some
of them were explored during the colonial period. Its institutionalisation started
in 1924 with the first formal department of geography established at the
Aligarh Muslim University with an undergraduate programme, later upgraded
into the Post Graduate Department in 1931. It was followed by Patna
University in 1928, Calcutta University in 1941, Ravenshaw College (Patna
University) in 1944, Banaras Hindu University in 1946, Agra and Allahabad
Universities in 1947, the University of Madras in 1948, MS University Baroda
in 1952, Ranchi University in 1954, the University of Bombay in 1957,
Gorakhpur University in 1958, Delhi University in 1959, Punjab University in
1960 and Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1971.

As you could observe that the process of institutionalisation as a distinct

subject was very sluggish in the universities because of its annexed position
with geology for a long time and criticisms by natural scientists for lack of
clarity about its nature and objectives. The subject had to face competition
from others and there was no formal institutionalised system of state-
sponsored grants until about the time that World War II took place.

SAQ 1
Why was the institutionalisation process very sluggish in the universities?

1.3 GEOGRAPHY AND ITS PLACE IN THE

CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE
1.3.1 The Beginning: Classification of Knowledge
We know that geography is the study of relationships between humans and
the environment including description and explanation of the same. As
discussed above, Geography faced tremendous hurdles in establishing itself
as a distinct university subject due to its nature of being interdisciplinary
covering both the realms of science and social science. By the time it started
to be recognised as a distinct field of study or subject in academia, the social
science and physical science subjects had already been established with their
clear fields of study in various universities. However, the long and strong
tradition of human-environment studies kept it to be in both faculties due to its
scope and coverage of the subject matter.

Geography emerged with history as the science of exceptionalism where the

two disciplines' core academic area was uniqueness with differentiation in
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time (history) and space (geography). The argument was that "Geography
and history fill up the entire circumference of our perceptions: geography that
of space, history that of time" (Hartshorne, 1939, p. 135).

Geographers who laid the foundations of the classification of knowledge and

contributed significantly to placing geography as an academic discipline
include Bernhard Varenius, Immanuel Kant, Alexander von Humboldt, Carl
Ritter and Alfred Hettner. Kant presented the classification of knowledge as
logical and physical putting systematic sciences (natural sciences) into the
logical one; and placing history and geography into the physical group due to
the phenomena under study, which belong to a particular time or a particular
place/space. Phenomena classified according to time were kept as History
and phenomena classified according to space were designated as geography
and both filled the entire circumference of reality.

Geography is both regional as well as a systematic science. It got split

between physical geography pursued as a group of systematic sciences and
regional human geography (Hartshorne, 1959, p. 180). Like the predecessors
such as Kant and Humboldt, Hettner also moved ahead with a view of the
whole field of objective knowledge rather than the consideration of particular
branches of science while considering the logical position of geography
among the sciences (Hartshorne, 1939, p. 140).

1.3.2 Geography as Science

Initially, there was a strong push to identify geography as a science discipline.
Kant's idea in this regard is significant: "Geography is an empirical science,
seeking to present a ’system of nature’, and is a law-finding discipline"
(Martin and James, 1993, p. 111). Alexander von Humboldt described the
position of geography among the sciences (Hartshorne, 1939, p. 135).
Geography is still science – both natural and social as its method is equally
based on empiricism (observation/experimentation and measurement) and
reasoning (reason), hypothesis testing and generalisation like other
systematic sciences. There are echoes of physical science tradition in the
methods of geography and the geographical enquiries have close parallels
with the physical sciences with field-based case studies and observations in
place of laboratory experimentation (Richards, p. 36). “Geography has had at
its disposal the same pluralist methodology that characterises the physical
sciences but which is, in fact, common to many areas of science (physical,
natural, environmental and social)” (Richards, p. 44).

Geographers had immense understanding and contributions, but many lacked

systematic approaches. As a consequence, Harvard University closed its
Geography Department in 1948 citing reasons as unscientific and lacking
intellectual rigour. Not only from the science faculty, but geography was
significantly excluded from social sciences also. Koelsch (2002: 270)
expressed the impact of it: “The closing of geography in the major private
universities sent a powerful signal that geography is no longer valued by
academic administrators in institutions that traditionally have turned out the
country’s economic decision-makers and its cultural and political elite”
(Johnston, p. 55). Even in social sciences, geography found its place much
later due to the strong advocacy of geography as a science discipline in the
beginning. Later on, it remained out of the ambit of social sciences for a long,
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especially in the USA when geography as a high school subject was merged
with social studies; and in the UK, geography with anthropology and
economics existed long before the existence of social science disciplines like
sociology and political science, still gained its identity very late.

1.3.3 Geography as Social Science

Sciences are defined by the objects under their domain of study, and hence
the whole reality cannot encompass entirely in the systematic sciences unless
time (history- division and arrangement with time) and space (geography-
division and arrangement with space) are considered as three-dimensional
reality – similar things, time and space. These are ignored by the systematic
sciences otherwise.

Initially, only those disciplines were classified under sciences, which were
empirical in the sense of laboratory experiments and testing but gradually
other disciplines also emerged as systematic social sciences with distinct
subject matter under study like that of language, religion, the state (political
science), of economics, etc. History and geography emerged distinctly as
exceptional areas to study the differentiation in terms of time and space,
where the different objects are the subject matters of history, and the same
are the subject matters of geography in terms of their occurrences over space
(distribution and pattern) in a particular region. So the reality is studied
systematically (specialised fields) as well as exceptionally when studied in
terms of development (through time) and space (through regions).

During the colonial era, colonial expansionists required geographical

knowledge, especially regional geography for the knowledge of physical
conditions, resources and people to control the resources. Similarly, during
Second World War, geographers were engaged by the government and
military for information about places and interpretation of aerial photographs.

Gradually, geography developed as the science of the spatial arrangements

of phenomena over the earth’s surface through the uniqueness of regions
(exceptionalism). The earth was supposed to be the mosaic or tiles of various
regions homogenous from within and heterogeneous from each other. The
argument was that there would not have been spatial science had there been
no causality among different phenomena within a region or causality among
various regions. During post Second World War period as opposed to
exceptionalism, a massive positivistic approach influenced the subject where
scientific methods in studying human aspects in geography were applied and
placed itself towards the domain of social sciences also. After the Hartshorne-
Schaefer debate in 1953, geography strongly got the recognition of spatial
science due to dealing with the space represented in geometry and its
scientific analysis. Human geographers reoriented geography towards social
sciences with their theories and borrowed their subject matters along with the
studies on spatial patterns and spatial organisation of objects and
phenomena. Much later Tobler’s First Law of Geography in 1970
strengthened this idea that ‘’everything is related to everything else, but near
things are more related than distant things”.

Later on, geography accelerated as a social science with the fast-changing

arena of social sciences and its interdisciplinary approach borrowing subject
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matters from other social science disciplines. It was also due to the sharp
criticism of quantitative revolution/positivism ignoring the role of culture and
individuality in human conditioning and behaviour (Johnston, p. 56).
“Geography came late to the social sciences, therefore, and by the time that
human geographers sought to ally with them they found they were excluded”
(Johnston, p. 58).

At a later stage, this tradition was enriched by human geographers by more

and more breaking the natural science tradition accelerating the discipline
with diverse theories like Michael J. Dear, David Harvey, Edward Soja, etc.
Though the natural science tradition is equally advancing often in alliance with
other systematic science like environmental sciences, geology, meteorology,
water resources, hydrogeomorphology, disaster studies, studies in natural
resources, etc.

1.3.4 Geography as Integrative Science/Science of

Synthesis
It is known that geography borrows its subject matters from other disciplines.
However, not intentionally, but geography has become important in many
sister disciplines - like geographical boundaries/alliances based on
geographical locations for political science; geographical space, location and
distribution pattern for economics; geographical factors in anthropology and
archaeology; geography and society in sociology in addition to the two-way
relationship with history (historical factors in geography and geographical
factors in history). It is a continuous phenomenon where physical
geographers take superior positions due to factors mentioned earlier (prestige
of science, acceptability as law formulating discipline and greater funding in
science research) and human geographers argue that the work excluding
human aspects is meaningless. There are some instances of collaborative
work in the process of bridging this gap.

Hettner in agreement with Kant and Humboldt outlined that “Unfortunately,

philosophers interested in the problem of the division of the sciences seldom
have a knowledge of the actual field of geography sufficiently adequate to
enable them to judge the system” (Hartshorne, 1939, p. 143). There were
perceptions of geography that it includes both human and non-human
phenomena as dualism by those who were focusing on the boundaries and
compartmentalisation instead of integration with the zones of contact among
all sciences as one unit of science the way Fenneman has represented
through his Venn diagram (Fenneman, 1919) of the interrelationship of
geography and other sciences including both the aspects of natural and
human interwoven as a complete reality presented in the Circumference of
Geography.

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Fig. 1.1: Diagramme showing the Intersecting/Continuous Relationship

of Geography with other Systematic Science Disciplines
"The planes are not to be considered literally as plane surfaces, but as
representing two opposing points of view in studying reality. The view of
reality in terms of areal differentiation of the earth surface is intersected at
every point by the view in which reality is considered in terms of phenomena
classified by kind. The different systematic sciences that study different
phenomena found within the earth surface are intersected by the
corresponding branches of systematic geography. The integration of all the
branches of systematic geography, focused on a particular place in the earth
surface, is regional geography."
(Source: Hartshorne, R. (1939): The Nature of Geography: A Critical Survey of
Current Thought in the Light of the Past, Wisconsin: Association of American
Geographers, p. 147.)

The world around us, both physical and human, has many aspects or parts
with different kinds of phenomena sorted and studied in different systematic
sciences as different sections and sub-sections of reality. However, to
understand the whole reality, there is a need to integrate the different aspects
of reality or phenomena. Thinking all facts in terms of their spatial existence
on the earth's surface constitute geographical facts and are studied within the
domain of geography without distinguishing any particular fact as its own
object of study. Its methodology of the chorological study with the complex
areal combination of objects and phenomena studied under different
disciplines has always been a source of dissatisfaction. In the process of
evolution, geography known as the mother of several systematic sciences
itself experienced desertion and emergence of specialised disciplines such as

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population studies, urban and regional planning, meteorology, hydrology,
Chorology- Science of
oceanography, GIS, surveying, etc. However, the chorological study of
space relating
geography as
objects and phenomena or facts remains to serve as the core domain or field
chorological science of study in geography. Geography attempts to study the interrelationships
concerned with the between objects and phenomena or facts as interconnected systems within a
systematic study of particular region and/or between and among various regions with a central
various facts in a region. idea of the uniqueness of every area or region.

Chorography- Holistic Thus, geography is an integrating discipline, bringing together a scientific

(regional) study of a understanding of the natural environment with studies of resources, illustrated
region including all by patterns of land use, settlements and human activities over the earth's
aspects in areal
surface – both as a product of nature and producer/modifier of surroundings.
combination as a study
This is an important claim for its recognition as a synthetic discipline. It is also
of reality. (regional
geography).
regarded as a bridge between the natural and social sciences due to its
nature (which was often asserted by Penck). The discipline is not only the
connecting field but is a continuous field intersecting various systematic
sciences (as shown in Fig. 1.1).

Systematic geography in the beginning was associated with the natural

sciences with sub-branches like geomorphology, climatology, hydrology, etc.
Later on, systematic geography included the specialised sub-branches of
human geography as well. A strong argument was that the “Science of earth
cannot logically be developed as a single branch of knowledge” (Hartshorne,
1939, p. 141) while compartmentalisation of various disciplines, especially
natural sciences in the university teachings.

Regional geography was supposed to be the end of geographical studies as a

study of unique space (region) and systematic geography was taken as the
means to the end by adding new knowledge or sharpening knowledge with
tested and verified analysis of different phenomena of reality with high
accuracy. Regional geography studies the whole reality not in pieces but in an
interrelated manner with the principles of spatial associations, whereas the
systematic branches work towards the advancements of geography with
sophisticated tools and techniques for research in respective fields.

SAQ 2
Why is geography an integrative science?

1.4 BRANCHES AND SUB-BRANCHES OF

GEOGRAPHY
1.4.1 Geographical Traditions
There are diverse definitions of geography due to its diverse sub-fields. In
writing about the evolution of geography and its branching, W.D. Pattison
(1964) and David N. Livingstone (1992) have discussed various traditions,
which help in better understanding of the branching and sub-branching of
geography. For the easy identification and grouping of sub-fields of
geography, Pattison gave the four traditions in geography in 1964. These are

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1. Spatial Tradition, 2. Area Studies Tradition, 3. Man-Land Tradition, and 4.
Earth Science Tradition.

Spatial Tradition has been there since the days of Ptolemy but has got
recognition from the writings of Immanuel Kant spelling space as a
component of geographical studies followed by other geographers like Emory
R. Johnson and Edward L. Ullman working on geometry and movements in
general and transport geography in particular. F.K. Schaefer wrote in 1953
that geography is the study of spatial patterns only. Initially, spatial tradition
created a bond among geographers who were more concerned with map-
making. This tradition received further impetus with the development of the
Central Place Theory.

Area Studies Tradition, also known as chorographic tradition, is also in

existence in the writings of Strabo dealing with the nature of places, their
characteristics and differentiation exhibiting the area-studies tradition followed
by the modern geographer, Richard Hartshorne.

Man-Land Tradition has its roots in the writings of Hippocrates (On Airs,
Waters and Places) in the 5th century BC reflecting the impact of the
conditions of external nature on human health and more specifically the
effects of winds, drinking water and seasonal changes upon man. It was,
though, the unidirectional view of nature as an active actor leading to the idea
of Social Darwinism in the late 19th century. This idea was dominant among
the first generation American Geographers. Gradually there existed a reverse
idea in the form of Possibilism considering man as the main actor and land
(nature) as the social/human product. However, geographical research and
studies were centred around this man-land tradition.

Earth Science Tradition embraces the study of the earth, its waters, its
surrounding atmosphere and the association between the earth and the sun.
Initially, it declined but college education continued this tradition. It is because
American college geography followed this tradition due to their separation
from the geology departments. Earth Science tradition is supported by other
disciplines also. This tradition was rejuvenated by Varenius in his book
Geographia Generalis, which is the basis of the development of geography as
science with several such sub-divisions like mineralogy, palaeontology,
glaciology, meteorology and other specialised fields. It is on the basis of the
philosophy of the earth as a unity, the single common habitat of man.

“The spatial tradition abstracts certain aspects of reality; area studies is

distinguished by a point of view; the man-land tradition dwells upon
relationships; but earth science is identifiable through concrete objects”
(Pattison, 1964, p. 215). Geography, carrying all four traditions simultaneously
with regional variations, the division of its fields may be explained with varying
combinations. “Human or cultural geography turns out to consist of the first
three traditions applied to human societies; physical geography, it becomes
evident, is the fourth tradition prosecuted under constraints from the first and
second traditions” (Pattison, 1964, p. 215).

David N. Livingstone makes an addition to the geographical traditions. He

says that Geography is the collection of ideas and practices concerned with
the earth and its inhabitants and has a contested and pluralist tradition. He

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has given the chronological geographical traditions with various themes as
geography meant different things to different people in different settings. The
heart of his argument is geography changes with the change in society and
the best way to understand the geographical tradition is to understand and
deal with the different social and intellectual environments where geography
has been practised.

The major events which contributed the geographical traditions start with
navigations and explorations and continues through astrology and natural
magic, mystical elements (magical geography often ignored in the writings of
history of geographical evolution), survey and cartography/map making
(paper world by transferring globe into two dimensional paper through
developing projections), tool of imperialism through Environmental
Determinism and Social Darwinism, Possibilism and Stop-Go-Determinism,
regional recitation (or regional studies as qualitative approach and regional
science as quantitative approach), go-between (geography as integrating
discipline as prominent tradition with the study of nature and culture because
both realms are incomplete without each other; and also as causal science in
interaction between man-environment and growing crisis due to human's
activities), space science (or spatial science as a result of Schaefer's
Execeptionalism in Geography of 1953, Bunge's Theoretical Geography of
1962 and Harvey's Explanation in Geography reinforcing geography as the
science of spatial distribution or locational analysis); human-centric (antithesis
of positivistic approach with radical, humanistic and behavioural geographies
with human experience); and postmodernism (things beyond grand narratives
signifying place and theories like structuralism and structuration, cultural and
epistemological pluralism and importance of particular, the specific and the
local).

The geographical tradition is also “an historically located mode of intellectual

inquiry but it is also, to make a kind of methodological claim about the doing
of its history” (Livingstone, 1995, p. 420)‘. Hence, it is also writing the history
of geographical knowledge.

1.4.2 Branches and Sub-Branches of Geography

Geography is classified into either general or systematic geography and
special or regional geography, or physical geography and human geography
as you have already studied in the previous sections of this Unit. General or
systematic geography is concerned with the formulation of laws/principles and
generalisation, whereas special or regional geography is concerned with the
various aspects existing in a particular areal or regional setting. Within
general or systematic geography, there is a further classification based on the
specialised area of study and within regional, there are area studies for a
particular region encompassing physical (natural and biotic) as well as human
phenomena as an aerial combination to study the reality in totality. Regional
geography covers all topics of physical geography and human geography at
the macro, meso or micro level region. You may see that there is an
overlapping in the classification as systematic geography includes various
aspects of both physical and human geography independently, while regional
geography includes all aspects of the region under study in an areal
combination (Table 1.1). The applied branch of regional development and

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Unit 1 Foundations of Geography
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planning also falls within the framework of this regional geography. Regional
planning may further be divided into town or urban planning and country
(rural) planning.

As per the above classification, systematic geography has two main

branches- physical geography and human geography. Further, within physical
geography, the sub-branches are astronomical geography, geomorphology,
climatology, hydrology and oceanography and pedology or soil geography
and biogeography. These sub-branches have further specialised micro-sub
branches like fluvial geomorphology, glacial geomorphology, coastal
geomorphology, aried geomorphology; plant geography, zoo geography,
human ecology and environmental geography or bio-geography, etc. There
are some specialised branches such as hydro-geomorphology combining two
sub-branches- hydrology and geomorphology.

Table 1.1: Branches and Sub-Branches of Geography

Geography
Branches
General or Systematic Geography
Sub-Branches
Geomorphology Fluvial Geomorphology
Glacial Geomorphology
Arid Geomorphology
Coastal Geomorphology
Climatology
Physical
Special or Regional Geography (Macro, Meso, Micro)

Oceanography
Geography
Soil Geography
Bio-Geography Plant Geography
Zoo Geography
Human Ecology
Environmental
Geography
Human Social and Cultural Ethnicity, Caste and Tribes,
Geography Geography Languages, Religion, Education,
etc., Health Geography, Gender
Geography, etc.
Economic Agricultural Geography, Industrial
Geography Geography, Geography of Trade
and Commerce, Geography of
Transport and Communication
Political Geography Electoral Geography, Geopolitics
Population
Geography
Settlement Rural Geography, Urban Geography
Geography
Medical Geography
Behavioural
Geography
Regional
Development and
Planning

Human geography includes social geography, cultural geography, economic

geography, political geography, population geography, urban geography, rural

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geography and medical geography or geography of health. Some of these
have further sub-divisions like economic geography has sub-branches as
industrial geography, agricultural geography, the geography of trade and
transport, resource geography, etc.; political geography has micro-specialised
sub-branches like geopolitics, electoral geography, etc. There are also
combinations of many sub-branches leading to the applied branch in
geography like regional development and (regional) planning including
regional geography (economic geography, population geography, political
geography, cartography, tools and techniques of regional analysis).

Some of the sub-branches studied in geography include subject matters from

both physical as well as human geography like the geography of natural
resource management, disaster studies, environmental studies, etc.

Methods and techniques of geography or geographical methods and

techniques include field survey, cartography, quantitative and qualitative
techniques and geospatial tools and techniques, which are applicable to both
physical as well as human geography.

SAQ 3
What are the major branches and sub-branches of geography?

1.5 SUMMARY
In this unit, you have studied:

 Geography as an institutionalised discipline;

 Geography and its place in the classification of knowledge; and
 Geographical traditions and branches and sub-branches of geography-
systematic and regional, and physical and human.

1.6 TERMINAL QUESTIONS

1. Explain the process of institutionalisation of geography as a university
subject in the world.
2. Discuss in detail the place of geography in the classification of knowledge.
3. Discuss geography as an integrative science highlighting it as a science
and as a social science discipline.
4. Write about the branches of geography as systematic and regional and
physical and human with geographical traditions given by William D.
Pattison and David N. Livingstone.

1.7 ANSWERS
Self-Assessment Questions (SAQ)
1. The process of institutionalisation as a distinct subject or true science
was very sluggish in the universities because of its annexed position

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Unit 1 Foundations of Geography
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with geology for a long time and criticisms by natural scientists for its
non-clarity about its nature.

2. Geography is an integrating discipline having a continuous field of

studies intersecting various systematic sciences from natural sciences
and social (human) sciences in a single areal combination due to spatial
relationships or causality to study the whole reality.

3. Major branches of geography are systematic and regional geography;

and physical and human geography. It is further sub-divided into various
specialised sub-branches.

Terminal Questions
1. Explain the process of institutionalisation of geography as a university
subject in the world with major barriers and milestones. Refer to Section
1.2.
2. Logically elaborate your arguments on the place of geography in the
classification of knowledge with the help of a diagram. Refer to Section
1.3.
3. Give a discussion on how geography is an integrative science
highlighting geography as both – a science and a social science. Refer
to Sections 1.3.2, 1.3.3 and 1.3.4.
4. Write about the branches and sub-branches of geography as systematic
and regional, and physical and human. Also, discuss the geographical
traditions given by Pattison and Livingstone. Refer to Section 1.4.

1.8 REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

1. Hartshorne, R. (1968): “Geography: The Field” in Sills, D.L. (ed.):
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 6, USA: The
Mcmillan Company & The Free Press, pp. 114-115.
2. Unwin, T. (1992): The Place of Geography, London: Pearson Education.
3. Castree, N. (2005): “Is Geography a Science?” in Castree, Noel, Rogers,
A. and D. Sherman (eds.): Questioning Geography, Fundamental
Debates, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., pp. 57-79.
4. Richards, K. (2013): “Geography and Physical Science Tradition” in
Clifford, N.J. et al. (eds.): Key Concepts in Geography, New Delhi: Sage,
pp. 21-45.
5. Johnston, R. (2013): “Geography and the Social Science Tradition” in
Clifford, N.J. et al. (eds.): Key Concepts in Geography, New Delhi: Sage,
pp. 46-65.
6. Hartshorne, R. (1939): The Nature of Geography: A Critical Survey of
Current Thought in the Light of the Past, Wisconsin: Association of
American Geographers.
7. Dikshit, R. D. (2004). Geographical Thought. A Critical History of Ideas,
New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India.

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8. History of Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University,
http://www.eng.geogr.msu.ru/about/history/
9. Pattison, W.D. (1964): "The Four Traditions of Geography” Journal of
Geography, Vol. 63 No. 5, pp. 211-216.
10. Ali, S.M. (1966): Geography of the Puranas, New Delhi: People’s
Publishing House.
11. Livingstone, David N. (1995): “Geographical Traditions”, Transactions of
the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 20, No. 4 (1995), pp. 420-422.
12. Livingstone, David N. (1998): The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the
History of Contested Enterprise, Chapter 10, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
13. Fenneman, N. M. (1919). The Circumference of Geography,
http://www.d.umn.edu/~okuhlke/Archive/GEOG%205803%
20Readings/Week%206/circumference_geo.pdf.
14. Hartshorne, R. (1959): Perspective on the Nature of Geography, Chicago:
Rand McNally & Company.
15. Martin, G. J. and James, P.E. (1993). All Possible Worlds: A History of
Geographical Ideas, New York: John Wiley and Sons, INC.
16. Halt-Jensen, A. (2018): Geography: History and Concepts, New Delhi:
Sage.
17. Husain, M. (1995): Evolution of Geographic Thought, New Delhi: Rawat
Publications.
18. Adhikari, S. (2015): Fundamentals of Geographical Thought, New Delhi:
Orient Blackswan Private Limited.
19. Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/
Sources of Photographs

1. Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/

2. https://iep.utm.edu/thales/

3. https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Eratosthenes/

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