Thinking geographically is one of the oldest human activities. Perhaps the first geographer was a prehistoric human who crossed a river or climbed a hill, observed what was on the other side, returned home to tell about it, and scratched the route in the dirt. The second geographer may have been a friend or relative who followed the dirt drawing to reach the other side.

Geography & History

Human geography and history both rely on the collection of evidence about human activity. In his framework of all scientific knowledge, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) compared geography and history:

Everywhere Is Unique

This chapter introduces basic concepts that geographers employ to address their “where” and “why” questions. To explain where things are, one of geography’s most important tools is a map. Ancient and medieval geographers created maps to describe what they knew about Earth. Today, accurate maps are generated from electronic data.

Geographers employ several basic concepts to explain why everywhere on Earth is in some ways unique and in other ways related to other locations. Many of these concepts are commonly used English words, but they are given particular meaning by geographers. To explain why everywhere on Earth is unique, geographers have two basic concepts:

• A place is a specific point on Earth, distinguished by a particular characteristic. Every place occupies a unique location, or position, on Earth’s surface. Panama City, the capital of the country of Panama, is uniquely situated on Panama Bay, which opens out into the Pacific Ocean (Figure 1-1).

• A region is an area of Earth defined by one or more distinctive characteristics. Geographers divide the world into a number of regions, such as Latin America, which includes Panama

All Locations Are Interrelated

To explain why different locations are interrelated, geographers have three basic concepts:

• Scale is the relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole. Geographers study a variety of scales, from local to global. Many processes that affect humanity’s occupance of Earth are global in scale, such as climate change and depletion of energy supplies. At the same time, local-scale processes are increasingly important, such as preservation of distinctive cultural and economic activities.

• Space refers to the physical gap or interval between two objects. Geographers observe that many objects are distributed across space in a regular manner, for discernible reasons.

• Connection refers to relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space. Geographers are concerned with the various means by which connections occur.

Panama: Connections

The Panama Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Puente Centenario (Centennial Bridge) spans the Panama Canal, providing connections for people between the two sides of the canal.

Environmental determinism- The theory that the physical environment controls human character and behavior and consequently human cultures and societies.

Example- In Africa people have darker skin so the sun won’t affect them as much.

• Environmental determinism is a proposed belief that the environment of a culture’s heart (location of origin) or dominant region shapes the cultural traits and predispositions.

• This belief was proposed as a way to explain the development of global cultures and societies.

• It was first proposed by geographer Friedrich Ratzel, a highly influential human geographer, and his students.

• By the 1800s and early 1900s, environmental determinism became so ingrained into Western society as the scientific evidence that supported racist ideologies. Even when slavery was abolished was racism and environmental determinism still widely accepted however, making many racist laws acceptable in the eyes of Western society.

• Environmental determinism even influenced Hitler and the Nazi Party to advocate the idea of expanding the living space for the Germanic and Aryan races in Europe while separating other optimal separate spaces for other ethnic groups.

• This idea was influenced by Ratzel’s idea called lebensraum, which advocated an allocated living space for each ethnic group that was optimal for their culture.

• And even after the fall of Hitler and the Germanic Nazi Party, Nazi-like groups still remain in the U.S. and Europe that advocate for violent racism against non-European. They also use environmental determinism as scientific support for their beliefs and actions as well.

Possibilism- People have the ability to adjust to their environment

Example- People in the living in the Alaska build igloos to survive.

• By the early 1900s, a new scientific ideology arose to combat determinism. This ideology was called environmental possibilism.

• Environmental possibilism is an opposing scientific belief that argues that while the physical environment can influence cultural traits, society still has the ability to alter their environment to adjust to their needs.

• In other words, a society was not defined by the environment but by how the society responded to those environmental limitations.

• This new scientific perspective was first proposed by French geographer Paul Vidal de La Blache and championed by other geographers like Carl O. Sauer.

• They also conducted new research that proved that societies did usually change their environment, even destroying it a high degree, to meet their needs as a society.

• Eventually, possibilism did replace determinism as the central explanation for the development of global cultures and societies.

• This thus made what Hitler, the Nazi Party, and other racist groups said (say) unreasonable and complete nonsense. With no credible scientific support to back up their beliefs and actions, these groups were soon seen as illogical and irrational.

• Environmental possibilism also helped transform society, Western society especially, as it helped reverse the societal acceptance of racism to reject it and instead support other non-European groups.

However, that is not to say that determinism is not important to

human geography.

• It is still seen as a significant attempt by geographers to explain cultural development across the world and it is true.

• Determinism did help human geographers try to understand societal and cultural development and even help spur the creation of environmental possibilism, even if it was used to justify racist ideas and actions.