Introduction

Geography is not a new subject for you — you have met it before as part of Social Science. What changes now is the depth. You will no longer just memorise places and features; you will study the physical environment of the earth, human activities, and the interactive relationship between the two. Before anything else, the book asks a simple but important question: why should we study geography at all?

The answer begins with the obvious. We live on the surface of the earth, and our lives are shaped by our surroundings in countless ways. We depend on the resources around us to sustain ourselves. Early primitive societies survived on what the book calls 'natural means of subsistence' — edible plants and animals found directly in nature. Over time, humans developed technologies and began producing food using natural resources like land, soil, and water. We adjusted our food habits and clothing according to the prevailing weather. And yet, there are striking variations across the world — in natural resource base, in technological development, in how societies adapt to or modify their physical environment, and in social organisation and cultural development.

A student of geography should be curious about all phenomena that vary over space. You learn about diverse lands and peoples, and you should also be interested in understanding the changes that have taken place over time. Geography equips you to appreciate diversity and to investigate the causes behind such variations over time and space. It also develops practical skills — the ability to understand the globe converted into maps, and to develop a visual sense of the earth's surface. Modern scientific techniques like GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and computer cartography build on this understanding, and these skills allow you to contribute meaningfully to national development efforts.

What is geography?

The earth is our home, and it is also home to many other creatures, big and small. But the earth's surface is not uniform. It has variations in physical features — mountains, hills, valleys, plains, plateaus, oceans, lakes, deserts, and wilderness. There are variations in social and cultural features too — villages, cities, roads, railways, ports, markets, and countless other elements created by human beings across their entire period of cultural development.

This variation is the key. It provides a clue to understanding the relationship between the physical environment and social and cultural features. The book puts it beautifully: the physical environment has provided the stage on which human societies enacted the drama of their creative skills, using the tools and techniques they invented and evolved in the process of cultural development.

In very simple words, geography is the description of the earth. The term was first coined by Eratosthenes, a Greek scholar who lived from 276 to 194 BC. The word comes from two Greek roots: geo (earth) and graphos (description). Put together, they mean description of the earth. Since the earth has always been seen as the abode of human beings, scholars defined geography as "the description of the earth as the abode of human beings."

Geography among other disciplines

Reality is multifaceted, and the earth is multi-dimensional. That is why many disciplines study different aspects of the earth's surface. From the natural sciences come geology, pedology, oceanography, botany, zoology, and meteorology. From the social sciences come economics, history, sociology, political science, and anthropology. Geography is different from these sciences in its subject matter and methodology, but it is also closely related to them. It derives its data base from all the natural and social sciences and attempts their synthesis.

Because there exist variations over the earth's surface in both physical and cultural environments — some phenomena similar, many dissimilar — it was logical to perceive geography as the study of areal differentiation. Geography studies all those phenomena which vary over space. But it does not stop at noting the variations. Geographers also study the associations with other factors that cause these variations.

Take cropping patterns as an example. They differ from region to region, but this variation is related to variations in soils, climates, market demand, the capacity of the farmer to invest, and the technological inputs available to her or him. The concern of geography, therefore, is to find out the causal relationship between two or more phenomena. A geographer explains phenomena in a frame of cause and effect — this not only helps in interpretation but also allows foresight into future phenomena.

Nature and human interaction

Geographical phenomena, both physical and human, are not static. They are highly dynamic, changing over time as a result of interactive processes between the ever-changing earth and the untiring, ever-active human beings. Primitive human societies were directly dependent on their immediate environment. Geography, thus, is concerned with the study of nature and human interactions as an integrated whole.

'Human' is an integral part of 'nature', and 'nature' has the imprints of 'human'. Nature has influenced different aspects of human life — its imprints can be noticed on food, clothing, shelter, and occupation. Human beings have come to terms with nature through adaptation and modification. Present societies have moved past the primitive stage. They have modified their natural environment by inventing and using technology, expanding their horizon of operation by appropriating and utilising the resources provided by nature.

With the gradual development of technology, human beings were able to loosen the shackles of their physical environment. Technology reduced the harshness of labour, increased labour efficiency, and provided leisure for human beings to attend to the higher needs of life. It also increased the scale of production and the mobility of labour.

The book captures this interaction through a poet's dialogue between 'human' and 'nature' (God):

You created the soil, I created the cup,

you created night, I created the lamp.

You created wilderness, hilly terrains and deserts;

I created flower beds and gardens.

Human beings have claimed their contribution using natural resources. With the help of technology, they moved from the stage of necessity to a stage of freedom. They have put their imprints everywhere and created new possibilities in collaboration with nature. Thus, we now find humanised nature and naturalised human beings — and geography studies this interactive relationship.

Space itself got organised with the help of means of transportation and communication networks. The links (routes) and nodes (settlements of all types and hierarchies) integrated the space, and gradually it got organised. As a social science discipline, geography studies this 'spatial organisation' and 'spatial integration'.

Three sets of questions

Geography as a discipline is concerned with three sets of questions:

The first two questions together provide inventorised information of what features exist and where they are located. This was a very popular approach during the colonial period. But these two questions alone did not make geography a scientific discipline — that happened only when the third question was added.

Geography as a discipline is related to space and takes note of spatial characteristics and attributes. It studies the patterns of distribution, location, and concentration of phenomena over space, and interprets them by providing explanations for these patterns. It takes note of the associations and inter-relationships between phenomena over space, and also of those resulting from the dynamic interaction between human beings and their physical environment.