GRMD 1403 Resources, Society and

Environment

Topic 1:
Geography: Concepts, traditions
and modern applications
1. Definition of geography
• The study of the interaction of all physical and
human phenomena at individual places and of how
interactions among places form patterns and
organize space

• Geography is about everything, everything is

related to geography
2. Four traditions of geography
• Spatial tradition
• Area studies tradition
• Man-land tradition
• Earth science tradition
Spatial tradition
• Look for patterns in the distribution of human
actions, environmental processes (distribution),
and interactions among and between places or
regions (movement)
• 3 terms to define “distribution”: density,
concentration, and pattern
• 3 terms to define “movement”: distance, distance
decay, and diffusion
• Determine and display the spatial aspects of reality
through mapping (the geometry of and the
movement of what is mapped)
Distribution
Density
• The frequency of occurrence of a phenomenon in
relation to geographic area

Concentration
• The distribution of a phenomenon within a given
area

Pattern
• The geometric arrangement of objects within an
area
Movement
Distance
• Measurements in terms of absolute (e.g., number
of miles), time (required to travel full distance), or
cost (e.g., car, plane, train, or boat fare)
Distance decay
• As distance increases, importance of the
phenomenon decreases (e.g., Chung Chi Canteen)
Diffusion
• An item or feature may spread across space
through diffusion
The concept of “shrinking world”

1500–1840 Average speed of wagon & sail

ships: 16 km/hr

1850–1930 Average speed of trains: 100 km/hr.

Average speed of steamships: 25 km/hr

1950 Average speed of airplanes: 480–640 km/hr

1970 Average speed of jet planes: 800–1120 km/hr

1990 Numeric transmission: instantaneous

Distance between actual pairs of tweeters and
followers
Types of diffusion:
– Relocation: people or things move between two
points (e.g., immigration and emigration)
– Contiguous, or contagious (direct contact, “And tell
a friend”)
– Hierarchical: downward or upward in a hierarchy of
organization. When such hierarchical diffusion is
mapped, it shows up as a network of spots, rather than
as an inkblot, spreading across a map (specific
authorities organize [filter] and communicate)
Major air-passenger routes in the United States
Friction of distance:
– Limits interactions across great distances

Barriers to diffusion:
– Distance and time
– Physical: oceans, deserts, topography
– Cultural (e.g., political boundaries, misunderstanding,
competition between groups)
 Tobler's First Law of Geography

Second Law of Geography

"The phenomenon external to an area of interest affects
what goes on inside"
Area studies tradition

• Sum up and regularize knowledge the nature of

places, their character and their differentiation
• Three basic ideas: site, situation, and region
Site
• The exact location of a place
• Described either in terms of latitude and longitude
or in terms of the characteristics of the place
• Each place has a unique combination of physical
and human characteristics
Situation (relative location)

• The location of a place relative to other places

• Indicated by such terms as nearer and farther,
easier or more difficult to reach, between, and on
the way or out of the way
Regions
Areas defined by one or more distinctive characteristics or
features, such as climate, soil type, language, or economic
activity
Formal regions: essential uniformity in one or more
physical or cultural features
– Sometimes politically defined
– May be bound by mountains or oceans
– More concrete and less quick to change
Functional regions: defined by interactions among
places (e.g., trade linkages, communications, and religious
structures)
Vernacular regions: widespread popular perception of
existence
Man-land tradition

• Resources and environment (human welfare is

dependent on basic physical processes)
• Human-environmental interaction (human society
actively and deliberately alters its surrounding
natural conditions)
– Man appearing as an independent agent, and
the land as a sufferer from action
– Transform natural landscape (no evidence of
human activity) into cultural landscape (local
environment was modified by people)
Earth science tradition

• Earth science is identifiable through concrete

objects (spatial tradition abstracts certain aspects of
reality; area study tradition is distinguished by a
point of view; man-land tradition dwells upon
relationships)
• Embracing study of the earth, the waters of the
earth, the atmosphere surrounding the earth and the
association between earth and sun (e.g.,
mineralogy, paleontology, glaciology, meteorology,
etc.)
Human geography
• Study human groups and their activities (e.g.,
language, industry, and the building of cities); a
social science
• Consist of the spatial, area studies, and man-land
traditions

Physical geography
• Study the characteristics of the physical
environment (e.g., climate, soil, and vegetation); a
natural science
• Earth science tradition prosecuted under
constraints from the spatial and area studies
traditions
Geographic systems analysis
• A system is an interdependent group of items that
interact in a regular way to form a unified whole
• Applicable to man-land tradition and earth science
tradition
Earth’s physical systems
Distinctive geographic tools
• Cartography (mapmaking)
• Remote sensing (mapping Earth from satellites and
aircraft)
• Geographic information systems (GIS) for storing,
displaying, and analyzing geographic data

Geography offers a way of thinking about problems,

and geographers are particularly well equipped to
understand interactions among different forces
affecting a place (integrative approach)