Human Geography

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOCUSES on interpreting and describing the various ways in which humans in all places and cultures adapt to and possibly modify their natural geographic environments. At the local or national scale, human geographers look at how economic, political, and cultural issues are related to spatial organization in different parts of the planet. How have humans modified topography, changed microclimates developed and changed rivers, lakes, and even coastlines?

Human geography is distinguished from PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY by its focus on human activities regardless of specific cultures. Changes related to different cultures or social systems is the realm of CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY.

Today, human geography also looks at regional and global patterns. Because of the spread of modern technology, humans today can make changes in the natural environment at a much faster rate and much grander scale than at any other time in human history. In addition, conflicts such as war can cause immediate and widespread environmental damage, such as the oil fires and spills during the various conflicts in IRAQ and KUWAIT or the widespread killing of wildlife in various African conflicts. The extent of environmental degradation and pollution in the former Soviet Union and the demise of the ARAL SEA are other examples of human-created changes in geography. Like physical geography, human geography is divided into a wide range of subtopics. These include economics, transportation, cultural geography, urban geography, and political geography. For example, human geography, when dealing with environmental issues, is not limited to natural dynamics but also takes into account the fact that there are distinct social, economic, and political environments.

The problems dealt with by human geography have varied over the course of time. In addition, new models and technical abilities affect how problems in the human-physical environment are approached. Given the diversity of philosophies and models for the description and analysis of human-environment interaction, it would be more appropriate to speak of a plurality of human geographies rather than one single human geography.

In 1992, David N. Livingstone noted different approaches to the discipline. According to this English geographer, the whole set of problems, subjects, and concepts that have developed over time have come to form part of this tradition and to be called human geography. From the time of the explorers to the drawing of maps, from the days of proposals for the study of industrial locations to the study of the distribution of wealth throughout the world, or the spaces constructed by “gay” communities or “okupas,” up to the time of the survey of the surface of the Earth with remote sensors and cartography based on GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS)—all of this has come to be a part of the human geography tradition and to distinguish it from the type of history and cultural or social and political analyses and description developed by other disciplines.

It is possible to distinguish four significant events that help to understand how different problems and subjects have become defined as human geography. These events were: 1) the formal recognition of modern geography (1870–1920); 2) the development of pragmatic perspectives (1950s); 3) the manifestation of radical and critical views (1970s); and 4) the development of what has been termed a postmodern approach along with more traditional cultural geographies (1980s and 1990s).