Geography as a Discipline — Class 11 Geography

This opening chapter introduces geography as an independent subject that studies the physical environment, human activities and their interactive relationships. The term was coined by the Greek scholar Eratosthenes from geo (earth) and graphos (description), so geography is literally "the description of the earth". Because the earth's surface varies — mountains, plains, plateaus, oceans, deserts as well as villages, cities, roads and ports — geography is seen as the study of areal differentiation, asking three questions: what (patterns of features), where (their distribution) and the crucial why (the causal relationships and processes behind them). Geography is a discipline of synthesis: it attempts spatial synthesis while history attempts temporal synthesis, and it integrates data from natural and social sciences holistically. Two major approaches are described — the systematic approach (introduced by Alexander von Humboldt), which studies a phenomenon worldwide, and the regional approach (developed by Karl Ritter), which studies all phenomena within a region. The branches based on the systematic approach include physical geography (geomorphology, climatology, hydrology, soil geography), human geography, and biogeography. The chapter closes by stressing the importance of physical geography — the study of the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere — for understanding the link between environment and human beings and for sustainable development.