The Nature of Geography as a Discipline

“Modern geography has come a long way from simple descriptions of places and landforms, and
it is this modern face that we need to portray” (Mathews and Herbert, 2008). The departments of
Geography were inaugurated in France in 1809, in Germany in 1817, in UK in 1887 and in India
in 1924 (Stamp, 1946).

The history of geography is closely connected with the history of human society and its
development. It’s part of human interests, and precedents can be found in all ancient cultures.
But as a science, geography is relatively young and many of its fundamentals appear during the
nineteenth century. For Kish, Geography is as old as man’s search for soil to dig for plantings,
for a path that leads to water, for a trail to a place where hard rock for arrowheads may be found
(Kish, 1978). Geography is also as new as man’s current search for ways to relieve urban
congestion, to establish well-marked international boundaries, to describe and analyse vegetation
patterns in remote parts of the earth. While the first geographical references are from travellers
describing the landscapes and the people living in them, the first scientific studies are from
mathematicians and physicists interested in the environment. It can thus be said that the
foundations of geography are in the natural sciences, from the need to explain the physical
environment and also the relation between the environment of humans and society.

(Seeing Geography timeline through two periods of time, Prehistory and Modern)

Greek writers produced topographical descriptions of places in the known world. These
descriptions covered the natural conditions (climate, soil fertility, etc.), culture, and way of life.
The “father of history” Herodotus of Halicarnassus (485 - 425 BC), for instance, described the
flow of the Nile and suggested that its source might be melting ice on Mount Kilimanjaro (this
proved to be a mistake but a good theory nonetheless). For instance, Herodotus of
HalicarnassusIndeed, his account of Egypt, based on extensive travels and what we might now
recognize as “interviews” of local priests and librarians, is full of observations ranging from the
natural world to the customs and beliefs of the people. Herodotus incorporated older sources of
geographical information, including the existing maps; he used earlier theories and descriptions
which would otherwise have been forgotten.

The following extract, for instance, starts with the climate and goes on to observe gender
differences in everyday appearance and behavior:

“The Egyptians in agreement with their climate, which is unlike any other, and with the river,
which shows a nature different from all other rivers, established for themselves manners and
customs in a way opposite to other men in almost all matters: for among them the women
frequent the market and carry on trade, while the men remain at home and weave; and whereas
others weave pushing the woof upwards, the egyptians push it downwards: the men carry their
burdens upon their heads and the women upon their shoulders: the women make water standing
up and the men crouching down: they ease themselves in their houses and they eat without in the
streets, alleging as reason for this that it is right to do secretly the things that are unseemly
though necessary, but those which are not unseemly, in public: no woman is a minister either of
male or female divinity, but men of all, both male and female: to support their parents the sons
are in no way compelled, if they do not desire to do so, but the daughters are forced to do so, be
they never so unwilling. The priests of the gods in other lands wear long hair, but in Egypt they
shave their heads: among other men the custom is that in mourning those whom the matter
concerns most nearly have their hair cut short, but the Egyptians, when deaths occur, let their
hair grow long, both that on the head and that on the chin, having before been close shave”
(Herodotus, 450 BC).

Mathews and Herbert (2008) and Harthshorne (1939) and many other geographers who have
tried to map the trajectory of the development of geography across the world show a few distinct
developments in this discipline. The oldest Chinese geographical document is The Tribute of Yü,
written during the 5th century BC and considered the first naturalist document in Chinese
history. It is a survey of several provinces of China, including their soils, agricultural products
and great rivers. Needham and Wang Ling believe that it may be contemporary with the work of
the Ionian geographer-philosophers. Other Chinese geographical documents are descriptions of
southern regions and foreign countries, written during the first millennium of the Christian era. A
much later book (fourteenth century) deals with Chinese trade with lands around the Indian
Ocean and beyond. The principles of geographical writing were formulated in the days of Greek
and Hellenistic science. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (9th century BC) are often considered to be
the first geographical works, in the sense that they provide detailed descriptions of the people
and places visited.

Hippocrates of Cos (460-360 BC), although best known for his contributions to medicine, was
one of the first writers to take into account the relationship between the environment and the
health and general character of men. Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BC) is remembered both for
his practical and his theoretical contributions to geography. He occupies a place in the history of
geographical ideas for his elaboration of a heliocentric theory of the universe. The travels of
greek merchants and seamen produced two of the earliest genres of Greek geographical writing.
The periplus, which provided detailed information about distances at sea and anchorages near
land, and the ‘periegesis’, a more general view of the major bodies of water.

While accompanying the pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims traveled across much of the Old World
relying on written geographical information and often adding greatly to it. The Moslem
contribution to geography took many forms. Possibly the most important was the translation and
absorption of knowledge from various sources, mainly from Greeks. The preservation of these
writings was essential later on for the revival of geography in the Christian world. A second
contribution was the compilation of geographical descriptions of the world of Islam, which
extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Muslims also made original contributions in
mathematical geography and surveying. With the rise and spread of Islam (7th to 14th century
AD), Muslim geographic knowledge increased considerably as a result of travel for religious and
economic reasons. Geography has always been a special interest to Muslims as many religious
rituals such as fasting and prayer required the appropriate knowledge of time and direction. This
sense of time and direction encouraged an early stage in the development of relevant instruments
for measurements. One of the earliest observatory stations was established by the Arabs in
Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo.

The earliest contribution of Christian geography was, like that of Muslim contributions, the
production of guidebooks for pilgrims, in this case traveling to the Holy Land. This can be
exemplified by the “Bordeaux Itinerary” and by Bishop Eucherius’ Epitome about certain holy
places. A second type of Christian geography is based entirely on scripture, as in the case
‘Christian Topography’ by Cosmas. The third genre was the encyclopedia, a form already
well-established in Roman times, being the best example the Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville.
David Liningstone suggests that the translation of Ptolemy’s Geography in Latine in 1410 was a
milestone, not least because he had devised a system of geographical coordinates by which any
point on the surface of earth could be identified.

The age of discoveries, navigators managed to circumnavigate Africa, opening a direct sea route
to the spice lands of Southern Asia. A New World was found to the west, later called America,
and by sailing around its southernmost extremity it was possible to sail around the whole world.
The result was a complete change on the view of the world and of geography.

Hartshorne in his book, “The Nature of Geography” mentioned Alexander Von Humboldt and
Carl Ritter as two classical geographers. In the same book, it has been mentioned that Paschel
stated that the work of Ritter in relating historical phenomena to physical phenomena would have
been impossible had not physical geography been advanced so notably by Humboldt. According
to Paschel, “a Carl Ritter could not have preceded Alexander von Humboldt, but could only
follow him” (Hartshorne, 1939).

Figure 1 shows the historical trajectory of evolution of geography in brief. In 1905, one year
after professional geography in the USA achieved fully social identity through the founding of
the Association of American Geographers, William Morris Norris responded to a familiar
suspicion that Geography is simply an undisciplined “omnium-gatherum” (a collection of
miscellaneous people or things) by describing an approach that as he saw it imparts a
“geographical quality” to some knowledge and accounts for the absence of the quality elsewhere.
According to Davis, “teachers of geography should be better taught”; that the subject should be
treated more scientifically both here and abroad; that it is far more than the “location of things”,
that emphasis on principles rather than on items cannot fail to foster the “intelligence as well as
the memory” of pupils in secondary schools; that even in such schools the casual notion should
be stressed - “how” and “why” as well as “where” and “what”, about things as we find them. “A
boost to the growth and recognition of geography as a social science in the end-1950s. Twin
forces shaped the destiny of the discipline. First, the growing awareness of the role of geography
in education and second, the applied role of the discipline towards planned national development