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The Essential Characteristics of Geography

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Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments. Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people.

globe showing world map

There are three essential characteristics of geographical work (Haggett, 1994) may be identified as Follow :

  1. Emphasis on the location
  2. Emphasis on society-land relation
  3. Emphasis on regional analysis

1. Emphasis on the location: 


In geography, we try to Establishment locations of phenomena on the earth's surface accurately and economically on the earth's surface accurately and economically on the map. Thus cartography is an essential tool for geographical work. 

Through our maps, we disentangle different location factors in order to delineate specific spatial patterns. By this means, we also endeavor to propose more efficient or more equitable patterns in the social and economic organization of everyday life.

2. Emphasis on society-land relation: 


The geographical study is by nature ecological in approach and perspective, so that it emphasis interrelations between phenomena, links between different aspects of phenomena in the local natural environment and the people living in that particular segment of the earth's surface. 

Here emphasis shifts from spatial variation of phenomena to the delineation of ecological links between the land and the people. 

This ecological relationship represents a kind of vertical bond. The relationship between the people and their habitat is a two-way affair. 

The character of the natural environment so that the environment in particular places as we find it today is partly the product of man's intervention. In this context, it is pertinent to remember that the choice of scale is the critical element in the geographical study since the scale of operation- local, regional or global is what determines the overall perspective.

3. Emphasis on regional analysis: 


The regional analysis involves identification of regions analysis of their internal morphology, their ecological linkage, and their relations with other regions near and far. Regional work involves two different but closely related approaches. 

In the one, we focus on areal organizations in particular places or areas with a view to gaining in-depth knowledge of the man environment reality obtaining therein. The sum total of such studies focused on particular places in different parts of the earth's surface may provide us valuable knowledge about the totality of the global man environment system. 

Such studies are termed as regional geography and involve the "total aspect" analysis of particular theme or element of the system and analyze it systematically over the earth surface  with a view to identify the general laws of its distribution over the globe. 

This is called systematic geography. the two are complementary perspectives. Regional geography provides the raw material on the basis of which in their turn, illuminate future perspective in a regional study of particular places by introducing a comparative perspective in research.


Source
Geographical thought
By R. D. Dikshit

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