Introduction to Geography Overview

Introduction to Geography

• Geography is a Greek word, "geographia", translated as earth description.
• It's the study of the Earth's surface and its relationship to human activity.
• Key branches include: Physical geography and Human/Cultural Geography, focusing on land and people.

Branches of Geography

• Regional Geography: Examines geographic elements of a region, defining its unique characteristics.
• Topical Geography: Focuses on specific topics of Earth surface or human activity globally, like soil quality and transportation.
• Physical Geography: Studies Earth's surface features, including land, water, and climate characteristics, and how human activities influence them.
• Geomorphology: Studies landforms and landscapes, and the processes forming them. Includes fluvial geomorphology (river processes) and processes like glaciation, river floodplains, underground caves, and shorelines, including coral reefs.
• Climatology: Focuses on the differences and similarities of climate from one place to another, including wind patterns, cloud formation, temperature fluctuations, and precipitation.

Other Branches

• Mathematical Geography: A branch that precisely measures the Earth's figure and motion, its seasons, and tides. It also shows its representation on maps and charts through various projections.
• Oceanography: Studies ocean phenomena (like currents, waves, temperature differences, and tides) and all aspects of the oceans including their boundaries and contents.
• Biogeography: Studies the geographical distribution of plants and animals; includes botany and zoology.
• Medical Geography: Studies the relationship between disease-causing organisms and their geographical spread or location patterns.
• Human Geography: Primarily focuses on humans and their activities, such as Economics, Political science, History, Sociology, and Anthropology.
• Cultural Geography: Explores cultural traits, such as customs, traditions, taboos, religion, dialects and customary practices.
• Population Geography: Investigates the numbers and distribution of people, along with their ethnic groups, religious compositions and population growth rate.
• Political Geography: Focuses on the relationships between political units, like provinces, states, nations or groups of nations.
• Historical Geography: Investigates how geographic patterns have changed across time, considering human and social works.
• Urban Geography: Studies cities and their significance in national life.

Additional Notes

• There's a relationship between geography and other disciplines, providing interconnected links to related fields.
• Various elements make up the Earth: Hydrosphere (water), Lithosphere (landforms), Atmosphere (climate and weather), and Biosphere (living things).
• Examples of physical and cultural elements involved in geographical studies are given in a table.