Talk:Geography

Links and definitions

29th August 2006

I found the links section on the page to be hopelessly disorganised and littered with sites which were either commercial in nature or very narrow in their focus.

I have now broken the links section into three clear areas covered by the links that were there: 1. Teaching Geography 2. Multimedia Resources 3. Organisations and pressure groups

And limited the links therein to no more than 5 per category. The idea is that future links will be placed in the appropriate categories and that these can in turn be "pruned" from time to time.

I hope this meets with the approval of the community!

Brian Griffiths (UK)

==

Tuesday 18th July 2006

Does http://www.geographyforum.net deserve a link? It is much more active at present than http://www.talkgeography.com, which currently enjoys a link from the main page. It carries no advertising and is a community of Geographers offering help and advice.

Wednesday August 13, 2003

There should be a link to the National Geographic Society article as well as infomation on the Royal Geographical Society.

Friday September 13, 2002

Political map- Shows boundaries that divide the world into countries and states.

Physical map- Shows natural features like mountains, rivers, and elevation.

Title- Tells the subject and/or location of the map.

Key/Legend- Explains the meaning of colors and symbols.

Scale- Defines the relative distances on a map. A smaller ratio, 1 to 1 defines a smaller area than 170,000 to 1. The ratio may be in inches to miles, centmeters to kilometers, or other mesurements.

Compass rose- Shows the 16 cardinal directions N, NNE, NE, ENE, E, ESE, SE, SSE, S, SSW, SW, WSW, W, WNW, NW, NNW on a map.

Latitude- Parallel lines that run east and west on a map.

Longitude- Lines that run north and south on a map, merging at the north and south poles.

Equator- Zero degrees latitude- an imaginary line that divides the earth into two hemispheres.

Prime meridian- Zero degrees longitude. Used as the origin for the measurement of longitude. The prime meridian runs through Greenwich, England.

Hemisphere- The portion of the earth north or south of the equator and east or west of the prime meridian and the 180th meridan.

Definitions moved here till they can find a better home or something, Aldie 22:39 Dec 8, 2002 (UTC)

political geography or geopolitics

This section implies that they are the same thing but they are distinct so it needs changing.

additions to geography article

Added some information about the history of the field in the 20th century, and about the human-environment subfields.

I felt there was no mention of Roman period, Srabo and Ptolemy should have been credited as Roman scholars, and also there was no mention of Kant or Ritters contribution in giving the geography its place Geography.sunilreddy 20:02, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nice one. I meant to come back and do a little on Ritter and never got around to it. Icundell 20:35, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Geographical terms

"What links here" offers a list of geographical terms that have their own entries: peninsula, sound, isthmus, etc. --and that really need to have a paragraph of simple alphabetic listing here. I know this is simple-minded, but it's part of what people are looking for at Geography.Wetman 20:02, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Is there something wrong with the sub-headings or is it my browser? The hierarchy doesn't seem to match the font sizes. It is a very good article though --BozMo|talk 15:30, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Arabian interwiki link

On this page, there is an interwiki link to ar:إستونيا. The same link is found on en:Estonia, and the interwiki links on ar:إستونيا refer to various articles on Estonia as well. As my knowledge of Arabian is extremely limited, I would like to ask someone who is capable of this language to search the arabian article which refers to geography and to correct the links here as appropriate. -- Gauss 15:33, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm just going to remove it (here and on interwikis) and if I'm wrong someone can put it back. It screws up the interwiki robot. ar:إستونيا also has internal links to Russia and Finland, so I'm pretty sure it's an article about Estonia. —Fleminra 21:19, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

Revision of Opening Statement

The opening statement of the article is an indication that Geography is a science, in the classical term (see Natural Science). This does no justice to the numerous Human Geographers out there, and all the people that spend there time to discredit positivism from Geographic thought. Shouldn't the introduction at least mention that Geography is not viewed in such a way by all geographers?

I think you are misreading the intro: First, "Scientific" is not equal to "positivist. Second, Hughes's terminology may be a little archaic, but he was making two points: geography is not descriptive, but analytical ("mere place names are not geography") and that it is comprehensive ("alike of the natural and of the political world"). It is in no way a statement in favour of positivism, since the term meant nothing then. Not only does it do full justice to human geographers (I am one and would value the quote for "of argument and reason" alone), but it allows them licence to break free of such stale, constricting, pigeonholes. Icundell 20:29, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

History of Geography

I created a redirect from History of geography to here, however I think it would be a good idea at this point to make the history of geography its own article and just keep more summarizing detail on the geography page. It is surely an article that I have reason to believe will grow so what do you think? gren 06:04, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I can certainly see the case for that - and it would allow more space to explore the way the discipline has developed in different countries.Icundell 09:51, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have created a new page on the Quantitative_revolution as there are quite a few links on it and not much information about it and hopefully it is of some use to people. Alex

Suggested changes

"Mathematics and physics are used to understand the motion of the earth and its relationship with other bodies in the solar system." Surely that's not geography! I've tweaked the summaries of human and physical geography. Hope everyone likes it. I have to say that Socio-environmental geography seems redundant and seems just to describe human geography. Historical geography seems like it needs rewriting as well. --komencanto 1 July 2005 05:52 (UTC)

The subheading of socio-environmental, and historical geography should not be given the prominance it is; particularly because these topics do not deserve any more exposure than the other human geography related subtopics. This article should be distinguished between the physical and human branches of geography, providing a general description of each. SCmurky 02:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

InterWikilinks

Notoholic just removed the commons and category list in favour of the search thing. I disagree with this because most of those are pointless .Wikiquote wikinews and wikispecies have nothing about Geography, and wikisource and wiktionary have very little. Also, the search function is disabled half of the time so why bother when the other links work well. Also, it doesn't include the category thing which is an important thing to include. That template has even been listed for deletion! I'll put it back the way it was, although someone is welcome to suggest why it would be better otherwise. Cheers, --komencanto 08:48, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Academic study

Suggestion: can we add more information about the acacdemic study of geography? E.g. major recognized centers/institutions, the prevalence of study at primary, secondary, and tertriary levels, etc in different world regions...? Thanks --Dpr 22:04, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Cultural Geography

The entry on cultural geography does a great injustice to all the research that has taken place in recent years, and really does need to be updated. Do we have any cultural geographers who can do a better job of this than me?

publication

would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:22, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Cultures of the World

New article stub. Please contribute if you can.--Culturesoftheworld 18:56, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

1:1 scale map of the Earth

Assuming I can do basic arithmetic (not a good assumption), a 1:1 scale map of the Earth would be 64,029,598,416 pixels on each side at 72dpi, and take up 1,120 TB. It could be transferred on 56k in under 5500 years, 300mb in 362 days, and 1 gigabit in 3 1/2 months. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-9 00:12

physical geography

Please refer to a comment made by WLE on Sun. Feb. 12. on the human geography page. I and Wikipedia need help finding some information about fragments of ancient continental crust. Thanks. WLE

INFORMATIVE

THE following article has helped me a lot thanks!

"the dual concepts of space and place"?

"the dual concepts of space and place provide a commonality of interest, which gives the subject a unique identity" at the end of the first paragraph - is that really meant to read that way? flux.books 15:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

HELP!

This entry needs attention. There are problems with the human geography, physical geography and "geographic realms" sections (if that one even should be there). I don't want to act unilaterally but something really needs to be done. The integrity of Wikipedia is harmed when inaccurate information is left up day after day. I'm willing to help, but it would be best if other people were involved as well. I continue to wonder, is anybody out there?WLE 23:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and edit the article yourself. It's OK!

Be Bold is official Wikipedia policy. Go ahead and edit the article yourself. It is not considered necessary to consult the previous authors in advance. Discusion is a last resort, in case of a disagreement. Consider this; one week ago, the opening sentence of this article was:

Geography is the study of locational and spatial variation in natural and human phenomena on Earth.

Today, the opening sentence reads:

Geography is the description of the surface of the Earth, its life and culture.

I think the revised opening is a notable improvement. One edit at a time, we all make Wikipedia better. -- Michaelfavor 04:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This very core article needs vast improvements, it's small for a big topic and most of it is lists. Needs an AID nomination. Skinnyweed 17:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Physical Geography

Why does it say physiocal geography relies on? Geomorphology, Oceanography, Biogeography, environmental geography etc started by geograraphers, so it doesn't make any sense to me. AlexD 11:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Geography started as a study of the Earth and throughtout the history there were (and still are) many disputes about its definition and object of the study. Since then many geographical sciences has divided from physical geography as separate sciences. The current opening definition: "Geography is the study of locational and spatial variation in natural and human phenomena on the Earth." does not include branches of physical geography and is human geography oriented (physical geography does not study the Earths surface, they see the Earth as a system which consists of litosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere etc. with a human influence). There exists also a definition of geography as: "Geography is the study of the Earth's surface." that I think is more unappropriate. Some also see geography as a study of interaction between man and nature. There are many other definitions. I think that should be emphasized that the object of the study of geographical sciences is the Earth, not the space or Earth's surface. Recently there is a movement toward the term Geoscience that includes all interdisciplinary sciences (also mathematical or technical) that study the Earth and their origins are in geography actually.

PS: I've found another definition that may be appropriate: "The study of the earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity." GeoW 11:20, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Geographic method

This article needs loads of revision. From what I can tell, we are trying to describe a discipline with innumerable different subtopics and variations; the problem with this approach is the fact that geography is presented as the sum of all these parts, which is not the case. I present a few points:

1. Geography has been studied from the dawn of western civilization, therefore we need far more historical information.
   1. Historical maps
   2. Info on the development of navigation
   3. Info on early explorers/pioneers
2. Philosophy plays an important role in geographic inquiry, therefore we should present the various philosphical perspectives.
   1. Humanism, environmental determinism, positivism, ...
3. Geography relies increasingly on modern technologies for a variety of purposes, therefore we should present these.
   1. GIS, GPS, sattelite technology, survey technology, ...

SCmurky 10:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello, much of what you have mentioned above has been included in the history of geography page, such as explorers, development of navigation etc. However, if you feel that it is not very detailed please add to the article.

1. The issue of philosohphy and geography is also broadly mentioned in the history of geography article as well. With environmental determinism (linked to its own page), the quantitative revolution and critical geography (representing humanism, feminism and behavioural geography) also having there own pages, being mentioned. Although, creating a new page on philospohy of geography would be welcomed as other areas such as non-representational theory, post-colonial theories, focault, post-marxism etc and there contributions to geography could be explored.
2. GIS is also mentioned in this article under the techniques section. On the other hand, you are right to point to a lack of information on remote sensing and GPS etc. Prehaps a re-work of the techniques section would be advisable.

Overall, the study of geography is dependent on where you study. For instance in the UK, geography is largely taught as the sum of its parts, with many students specialising in one of geography's sub-disciplines. Evidence of this can be seen in the article "Geography: a different sort of discipline" (2003) by Ron Johnston in the Trans. Brit. Ins. Geog. NS28 133-144 and "The Future of Geography: when the whole is less than the sum of its parts" (2002) by Nicholas Clifford in Geoforum vol.33 431-436 AlexD 14:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

..."When the whole is less than the sum of its parts"? I'll have to look at that book. I will add summarized historical information from the history of geography article, when I have time of course. The placement of the physical/human geography section is out of context with the article, these should come after the history/philosophy sections (Im still uncertain of where they should be from the techniques section); in addition, these articles have their own pages where their associated links should be placed, physical geography and human geography respectivley. SCmurky 23:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The structure of the article is somewhat hap-hazard. Prehaps the following structure might be better:

• History of Geography
• Philosophy of Geography
• Branches of Geography

Physical Geography

Human Geography

Applied Geography

Environmental Management and Change

Natural Hazard and Risk

Problems in the Built Environment

Spatial Analysis Techniques (Including GIS, Remote Sensing etc)

Related Fields

• Geographical Techniques/ Practices

Quantitative

Qualitative

Laborartory (including palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, water analysis etc)

• See Also
• External Links

The seperate Human and Physical Geography pages appeared some time after the main Geography article and may be were envisaged by their authors' as being the main articles for that area. However, they have somewhat turned out to be stubs rather than main articles. AlexD 16:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the structure you have outlined, I only feel that socio-environmental geography seems out of place. Wouldnt applied geography cover the GIS/surveying/mapping aspects. Also, check out philosophy of geography, I created this, however it needs a lot of work.SCmurky 00:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

There used to be a summary of The History of Geography and a link to the history of geography article. Might be worth checking the artcile history so see when it got (wrongly) chopped. Icundell 13:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Socio-environmental could be combined with Applied Geography, although the CAPE section is more so a philospohy area or approach and maybe could either go under your philosophy of geography or the human geography page under a new title of approaches (the historical geography section that was on here could also be moved there). The hazards and risk section could then be moved to the applied geography section. Applied geography would cover GIS etc as you've pointed out but it wouldn't cover the Quatitative and Qualitative methods. I've changed the layout above accordingly and if all is fine then I shall find some time to do some research and help out. AlexD 14:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Just changed a lot of the article and here is the reasoning.

• re-work the opening paragraph to be more concise and a description what geography examines *brought back the quotation as it elaborates that geography is not only about maps
• new introduction section to hold all the additional information that was previously in the opening paragraph as the old version was cluttered at the beginning
• re-worked the history of geography summary so it covers most of the important periods and doesn't just scatter over and miss out large chunks
• new selected list of notable geographers -added to make more knowledge of geographers and to place the list of geographers article in a more prominant site on the article.

AlexD 13:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Categories

I've added a new category (Category:Academic Geography), if everyone could make an effort to use this tag in relation to the academic side of geography then we will be able to build up a basic list of topics on wikipedia that relate to geography and will be able to improve the at present appalling condition of geography on wikipedia. Many thanks. AlexD 11:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey everyone, I've just spent a while sorting through the Category:Geography and have finally sorted out the mess but there is still a bit to go to get it like a tree! I would appreciate users commenents on the new layout and groupings. AlexD 16:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

About the definition

I think we should come to an agreement about the definition of geography. Geography is not just the science of distribution. The are at least four main views on geography: as a science of distribution (spatial view), area studies tradition (or areal differentiation, regionalism), man-land relationship tradition and the view of geography as an Earth Science. See this articles: http://www.ncge.org/publications/journal/classic/

I think that the definition I provided lately and is changed now does justice to all of them. It was: Geography is the study of the Earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity. That's according to:

geography. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=geography(accessed: September 05, 2006).

I would not include environment into definition as it is studied by Environmental Sciences.

This definition could be than completed by some key words that play important role in geographical research, such as space, place, region, relationship, scale and so on. I think that the only thing that geographers would come to agreement what is common for them is the Earth and probably the space (not only 2 dimensional) and relationships.

Another question is: It is needed to cite that William Hughes. Never heard of him and geography does not need to defend itself. I'm european, geography is thought in basic schools and high schools and it does provide systematical information about the Earth, including geology. Maybe there's another situation in United States, where Physical Geography was merged into geology, following the geography crisis and spatial (human) geography in 60s. Let me know what you think. GeoW 09:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I learned the Hughes quote at my UK university (or polytechnic as it was then) and still have my lecture notes (from 1979) - not everything is on the internet, you know. The point of the quote is the rejection of 'capes and bays' geography, ie as purely descripive, of geography as cartography, which is why the quote was placed where it was.

And of you do not beleive that geography needs to defend itself then you haven't been following the debate about its place in the UK school curriculum (never mind its constant history of flux). Icundell 12:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Looking again, it should have been placed in Introduction, after the carogrpahy comment. Icundell 12:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

To hark back to the definition, I think that it ought to include environments with in it, as many organisations include it in their definitions. For Instance:

• "Geography is the study of the earth’s landscapes, peoples, places and environments." (RGS - http://www.rgs.org/GeographyToday/What+is+geography.htm)
• http://www.aag.org/Careers/What_is_geog.html somewhat lenghty but towards the end environment is mentioned
• http://www.runet.edu/~geog-web/whatgeog.html
• CIA's definition "Geography This category includes the entries dealing with the natural environment and the effects of human activity." https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/notesanddefs.html

Further to this a lot of geography departments provide courses relating to the environment and some are even subsumed into a large school for the environment such as at the Universities of Oxford, Birmingham, Aberystwyth and Swansea. AlexD 16:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

geography

is a way of studying the world