Approaches

A Greek scholar, Erastosthenes, is considered to have been the first to use the term/geography, in the third century BC. It is derived from tWo Greek words-geo (earth) and graphe (description). Literally, therefore, geography is the description of the earth, more specifically, the surface of the earth and all that appears on it. But over the years, the subject has widened to include more than mere description; it brought into its ambit explanation for the responses of human beings to their natural environment. Geography is concerned with the study of where people, animals and plants are found and how they relate with earth features such as rivers, mountains and deserts.

Geographers also examine where earth features are located, how they came to be there, and why their location is significant. According to Hartshorne, geography is con­cerned with providing "accurate, orderly, and rational description and interpretation of the variable character of the earth surface". Now, the term "earth surface" generally includes the thin zone extending as far below the surface as human beings have been able to penetrate and as far above as. they have been able to go. With the advance of technology, this zone has continued to expand; thus, the "earth surface" forming the focus of a geographer's study is relative to the level of technological progress.

There are three essential characteristics of geographical work, according to Haggett. (i) There is an emphasis on location, an attempt to establish locations of phenomena on the earth. surface accurately and economically. So, cartography (making maps) is an important tool for geo­graphical work. (ii) There is an emphasis on society-land relations. Geography has an ecological perspective-it stud­ies environment in the context of environmental effects on humans and the changes in the environment brought about by human intervention. (iii) There is regional analysis, involving identification of regions, analysis of their internal morphology, their ecological linkages, and their relations with other regions. Two approaches are possible in this context.

In one, the focus is on areal organisation in particular places with a view to gaining in-depth knowledge of the human-environment situation prevailing there. A region at different scales-a continent, a country, a local area-is studied in all its geographical aspects. This is regional geography. In the other approach, any particular theme or element of the system is chosen, say climate, and analysed systematically over the earth surface-or a large part of it-with the idea of identifying the general law of its prevalence over the globe. This is termed as systelJ}atic geography. The two approaches are complementary.