Nature And Scope Of Human Geography:

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY:

Human Geography is the field of geography that deals with human presence, activities, and
impacts on the natural environment. This includes the study of populations, their migration, and
their distribution; economic activities such as resource extraction, industry, and agriculture;
settlement patterns and political geography and the modification of the natural environment. In
short, human geography involves the study of all human activities and their impact on the natural
environment.
The impact of early human societies on the natural environment was minimal because small
nomadic populations existed primarily through hunting, fishing, and gathering. Tools and dwellings
were fashioned from natural materials such as wood, stone, animal skins, and bone. This was the
type of existence of many First Nations groups at the time of European arrival in North America.
The domestication of plants and animals brought about greater changes in the physical
environment. Land was used for extensive grazing and was cultivated to grow crops marking the
beginnings of agriculture. The availability of more reliable food supplies allowed humans to live in
permanent settlements and to develop a more complex society. These developments brought
about greater changes to the natural environment through the clearing of forests, construction
of permanent dwellings, and the eventual growth of settlements.
As early societies became more successful in meeting their needs within permanent settlements,
they were able to live in larger concentrations and further develop their economic, social, and
political systems. The rise of agricultural, resource extraction, and manufacturing activities led
to more complex economic and political systems. Transportation and trade networks were
established, political boundaries were created, and settlements grew into towns and cities. The
physical environment was subjected to greater and more permanent changes as societies evolved
into the modern urbanized and industrialized world that we know today.
The invention of the internal combustion engine, the rise of the automobile, and the discovery and
extraction of vast amounts of fossil fuels resulted in dramatic changes to how people lived as well
as a considerable impact on the natural environment. One of the greatest challenges faced by
humans today is how to manage the use of energy resources in a sustainable fashion without
inflicting permanent damage to the environment in the form of land, air, and water pollution and
climate change.
Throughout human history, the physical environment has provided raw materials for human use
and influenced human activities. In turn, human activities have altered the physical environment in
dramatic ways in many parts of the world. Many believe that the nature of this interrelationship
between the physical and human environments has reached a critical stage and will have to be
addressed to ensure human survival on planet Earth in the 21st century.

Nature and Scope of Human Geography:

Human geography, is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with the environment, with particular reference to the causes and consequences of the spatial distribution of human activity on the Earth's surface.

It encompasses human, political, cultural, social, and economic aspects of social sciences. While the major focus of human geography is not the physical landscape of the Earth (see physical geography) it is not possible to discuss human geography without going into the physical landscape on which human activities are being played out, and environmental geography is emerging as an important link between the two. Human geography is methodologically diverse using both qualitative methods and quantitative methods, including case studies, survey research, statistical analysis, and model building among others.

The main fields of study in human geography focus around the core of:

Cultural geography
Subfields include: Children's geographies, Sexuality and space, Animal Geographies, Language geography & Religion geography
Development geography
Economic geography
Subfields include Marketing geography
Health geography
Historical geography
Subfields include Time geography
Political geography
Subfields include Electoral geography, Geopolitics, Strategic geography & Military geography
Population geography
Social geography
Urban geography
Tourism geography
Subfields include Transportation geography
Within each of the subfields various philosophical approach can be used in research therefore an urban geographer could be a Marxist urban geographer or a Feminist Urban geographer etc.

 

It is to Ritter and Humboldt that we owe the real beginnings of human geography as an integral and, indeed, from Hitter’s point of view, the crowning part of the subject matter. 

To appreciate the greatness of their work we must realise how critical for the whole future of geography was the period in which they lived. It was a period in which great masses of new geographical data were being accumulated, but so long as these remained unsystematised and unrelated, they tended only to increase the inchoate and amorphous character of a subject which was rather a torture to the memory than a stimulus to the mind. 

It was a period, too, in which many independent, specialised sciences dealing with particular aspects of earth lore such as geology and meteorology were rapidly developing so that the domain left to geography itself, according to the prevailing conception of its character, was increasingly uncertain. It was Bitter and Humboldt who rescued what seemed indeed to be a moribund subject and gave it coherence, individuality, and an immensely enhanced significance. This they did by claiming for it not a distinctive segment in the circle of knowledge—which is to destroy its very essence—but a distinctive method and objective in the handling of data common to other subjects. Ritter gave the keynote to the whole modern development of geography when he said (in his “Comparative Geography”) “It is to use the whole circle of sciences to illustrate its own individuality, not to exhibit their peculiarities. It must make them all give a portion, not the whole, and yet must keep itself single and clear.” Geography, he maintained, could only escape disintegration “by holding fast to some central principle; and that principle is the relation of all the phenomena and forms of nature to the human race”.