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Evolution OF Geographical Thought

Geography (University of Delhi)

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EVOLUTION OF GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT

SUBMITTED BY – SOMYA BHATIA

SUBMITTED TO – Mr. Balakrishnan P.

QUESTION - Write a detailed essay on how have the

Introduction –
What is Geography? 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. Geography
seeks to understand where things are found, why they are there, and how they develop and
change over time.

History of Geography: The history of geography is closely connected with the history of human
society and its development. It is 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.

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The first geographical references are from travelers 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 on the idea of the influence of this
environment on humans and society.

Livingstone asserts that for generations, geography has been intimately involved in exploration,
at least since the time of Muslim scholar-travelers, the voyages of the Scandinavians, Chinese,
and medieval Christian adventurers. But it was with the European voyages of reconnaissance,
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that this first-hand knowledge of the world
contributed most decisively to coherent body of geographical knowledge of the terrestrial globe.
The significance of scientific travel was mainly due to Alexander von Humboldt through his
explorations in South America.

The knowledge explosion occasioned by the European voyages of exploration brought new
cartographic challenges and accomplishments. Although around the Mediterranean, Portolano
Sea charts had been circulating for a long time and there already existed various Mappaemundi,
the new lands discovered had to be reduced to paper. Gerard Mercator solved some of the
mathematical problems associated with transferring a sphere to a flat surface with his famous
map projection. In the following centuries, geography's close links with cartography continued to
be maintained. The map, as both graphic language and visual representation, continues to be used
as a geographical tool, at present with the invaluable assistance of remote sensing and
Geographical Information Systems.

The first work entitled Geography was written in Alexandria, in the third century B.C., by
Eratosthenes. From those beginnings the study of the earth as the home of humans, of earth
processes, and of the distribution of terrestrial phenomena has continued to our day. Writings
range from biblical texts and early Greek explanations to the first formal statements on
geography as a science, written between 1650 and 1850.

EARLY GEOGRAPHERS -
1. Chinese

Kish presents several Chinese geographical writings taken from the work by Needham and Wang
Ling, Science and Civilization in China. The section dedicated to earth sciences includes
examples of early Chinese geographical writing. The oldest Chinese geographical document is
The Tribute of Yü, written during the 5th century B.C. 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 it may be contemporary
with the work of the Ionian geographer-philosophers. Other Chinese geographical documents are

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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. A Chinese pilgrim, Hsüan-Chang, wrote on Indian cosmography
and on the lands and peoples of southern Asia during the 7th century A.D. Fa'Hsien, 5th century
A.D., describes his pilgrimage travels. It has to be borne in mind that to Buddhist a travel to
India is similar to the Muslims pilgrimage to Mecca. Chau Ju-Kua dealt with Chinese overseas
trade and maritime expeditions of the 13th century, a book of the typo of a geographical
encyclopedia

2. Greek and Latin

The principles of geographical writing were formulated in the days of Greek and Hellenistic
science. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (9th century B. C.) are often considered to be the first
geographical works, in the sense that they provide detailed descriptions of the people and places
visited. For Kish, Hesiod's poems represent the earliest written traditions of our Greek heritage.
Hesiod (8th century B.C.) wrote about the yearly cycle in the life of Greek country folk. Works
and Days has been called a shepherd's calendar, and describes the march of the seasons and the
associated environmental changes. In the poem Theogony, he describes the power of the winds
over the lives of men. Holt-Jensen explains how scholarly Greek writers produced topographical
descriptions of places in the known world, discussing both natural conditions and the way of life
of the people living there. Herodotus (485-425 BC), although considered the father of history,
described geographical events in a geographical setting, and some of his writings are truly
geographical in character. He not only described geographical phenomena as, for example, the
annual flow of the Nile, but also attempted to explain them. In addition, he incorporated older
sources of geographical information, including the existing maps. In this way Herodotus used
earlier theories and descriptions which would otherwise have been forgotten.

The writings of the Latin encyclopedists were based on the work of their Greek predecessors.
During the late Empire and through much of the Middle Ages, the Latinspeaking West, unable to
read the original sources, relied entirely upon these Roman authors of handbooks. Vano, Pliny,
Pomponius Mela, Solinus, and Macrobius were read, copied, and later still, printed-while
Aristotle, Hipparchus, and Strabo were only names in a long list of authorities quoted in
geographical writings. Holt-Jensen explains how the topographical tradition of Greek geography
was carried forward into Roman times. Strabo and Ptolemy can be considered to have had the
most direct influence on the future shape of European geography. Strabo (64 BC—AD 20) wrote
a work of 17 volumes called Geographica. This was largely an encyclopedic description of the
known world whose chief value was that it preserved for posterity many writings that he
annotated and cited. Geographica also included attempts to explain cultural distinctiveness, types
of governments and customs in particular places. The significance of natural conditions for

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cultural development was discussed in relation to a number of places, especially in the

3. Muslim Geography

While accomplishing the pilgrimage to Mecca, Moslems 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
A.D.), 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 the development of relevant
instruments for measurements. One of the earliest observatory stations was established by the
Arabs in Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo. During the Middle Ages the Muslims had more
advanced culture than did most of medieval Europe, specially in Al-Andalus. They had made
great discoveries in various fields and, above all, preserved many of the writings of ancient
Greek, Roman and other oriental civilizations. Learned men with knowledge of Arabic and
Hebrew translated into Latin many manuscripts. The centers of learning in Muslim Spain were
thriving, with scholars from many places and particularly so from Europe. Spain became the land
of contact between Islam and Christianity. As Arabic was the language of culture and learning,
many books were translated from Arabic into Latin and other European languages including
German, French and English. It is worth mentioning that during the X century there was an
important school of translators in Ripoll Monastery, in the Catalan Pyrenees near the French
border. Gerbert d’Orlhac, who became Pope Sylvester II (999-1003), obtained in Ripoll his
scientific background that he later introduced in Europe.

4. Christian Geography

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. It is to
the Byzantines that we owe the survival of Ptolemy's work, but few examples of actual
Byzantine geographical writing exist. One is that of Procopius, a historian of the age of Justinian

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and the second that of Constantine VII, an emperor-statesman who ruled the Byzantine Empire
during the tenth century.

The writings of these navigators produced a great deal of geographical information. Columbus
describes the first glimpse of the West Indies in his Journal (1451-1506) preserved by the
Spanish historian Las Casas, and on his formal report to Ferdinand and Isabelle. The letter is the
oldest authentic document of the European presence in the New World. He writes of high
mountains, broad sketches of country, forests and extremely fruitful fields excellently adapted for
sowing and grazing, building dwelling houses, excellent harbors, and a wealth of rivers. He also
mentions differences between islands. He also describes the inhabitants, their appearance and
way of living. The best maps showing the results of discoveries were drawn, engraved, and
published in Italy. But the credit for reforming geography, for giving up-at least in part- the
exclusive reliance on classical and biblical authorities, and for introducing personal observation
belongs to the German humanists.

Some people have trouble understanding the complete scope of the discipline of geography
because, unlike most other disciplines, geography is not defined by one particular topic. Instead,
geography is concerned with many different topics—people, culture, politics, settlements, plants,
landforms, and much more.

What distinguishes geography is that it approaches the study of diverse topics in a particular way
(that is, from a particular perspective). Geography asks spatial questions—how and why things
are distributed or arranged in particular ways on Earth’s surface. It looks at these different
distributions and arrangements at many different scales. It also asks questions about how the
interaction of different human and natural activities on Earth’s surface shape the characteristics
of the world in which we live.

Because the study of geography is so broad, the discipline is typically divided into specialties. At
the broadest level, geography is divided into physical geography, human geography, geographic
techniques, and regional geography. Thus , Geographical perceptions can be traced from very
ancient cultures, although geography as all sciences developed during the Enlightenment, but it
was in the early nineteen century when it was firmly established based in many aspects in the
Darwinian revolution.

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