Discuss the similarities and differences between human and physical geography

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S. Merchant

Discuss the similarities and differences between human and physical geography

Geography is a dynamic and ever expanding science that covers a broad range of topics. The study of geography has been, fairly recently, divided into two main categories, the human and the physical, whilst it is often difficult draw a line between where relationships between the two aspects of geography start and end, a general understanding would suggest that human geography concentrates on the relationship between human beings and the environment whilst physical geography concentrates on the scientific understanding of the environment itself. This essay will examine the similarities and links between the two areas of geography and the evolution of these areas before looking in more depth at how the two fields contrast in their attempt to gain a geographical understanding.

Initially most geography books covered both the human and physical aspects of the science although this began to change as geographers started to specialise in certain areas, mainly in physical geography between the 1920s and 1940s. Early works by geographers also link human and physical geographies to the presence of a superior being. These teleological ideas made assumptions that geographical factors were in fact God’s creations, so for a long time physical and human geography involved linking geographical processes and patterns to religious beliefs, these ideas were explored by geographers such as Carl Ritter. In the United Kingdom human geography was not really explored in detail until after 1945.

According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, a study of a field of interest is a science if it observes, identifies, describes, investigates experimentally and theoretically explains phenomena, therefore both physical and human geography must be considered to be science due to the fact that both areas of geography can be studied methodologically. Despite the fact that the two aspects of geography are moving apart they are both considered to be sciences that have drawn on the idea of space.

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Spatiality is what bonds together both aspects of geography; both physical and human geographies are concerned with the idea of space, whether it is the relationship between people and space or nature and space. The notion of space has been important in geography since the geographers during empirical times needed to gain an understanding of the land in a mainly cartographic way so as to expand their empires through colonisation and to begin trading with foreign lands.

Together human and physical geography went through a period of change when the approach to the subject was scrutinised by ...

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