Geography

IV

History of Geography

Although geography is one of the oldest areas of human inquiry, it is also one of the most recent intellectual disciplines in modern academia. Since the earliest times human beings have explored and attempted to map and understand the workings of the world around them. However it was not until the 17th century that geography began to emerge as an independent intellectual discipline and not until the late 19th century that it was accepted as an academic discipline, with the founding of the first university geography departments.

A

Origins of Geography

Although prehistoric peoples clearly explored their world, they did not generally record the results—albeit the first topographical maps date back more than 8,000 years to the Neolithic period (see History of Cartography). The recording of the results of exploration and the description of the observable features of different places begins with such ancient peoples as the Chinese, Egyptians, and Phoenicians (see Phoenician Exploration). By 1400 bc, for example, the shores of the Mediterranean Sea had been explored and charted, and during the next thousand years early explorers visited the British Isles and navigated most of the African coast.

The origins of geography as an intellectual discipline, however, are normally traced back to ancient Greece and to such figures as Thales, Anaximander, Herodotus, Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Strabo, and Ptolemy. Their contributions did much to advance geographical theory and gave the Western world its first important knowledge relating to the form, size, and general nature of the Earth. It should be understood, however, that there was no concept of geography as we know it today. The term “geography” rather referred to a form of applied mathematics concerned with the measurement of the Earth’s dimensions and intimately linked to astronomy. The detailed description of the features of the Earth was called chorography and was encompassed within what was then defined as history.

During the 300s bc, the philosopher and scientist Aristotle became the first person to demonstrate that the Earth was round. He based his hypothesis on the arguments that all matter tends to fall together towards a common centre, that the Earth throws a circular shadow on the moon during an eclipse, and that in travelling from north to south new constellations become visible and familiar ones disappear. A century later, the mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and poet Eratosthenes was the first person to calculate accurately the circumference of the Earth. One of the candidates for the title “father of geography” and the first person to use the word “geography” in an important treatise on the mathematics of Earth measurement, he also made a map of the world using a crude form of latitude and longitude. The astronomer Hipparchus in the 2nd century bc also devised a system of latitude and longitude, as well as discovering the precession of the equinoxes and calculating the length of the tropical year. His mathematical work also provided the basis for the development of trigonometry (essential to the development of cartography), which was further advanced by the astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy during the 2nd century ad.

The other main candidate for “father of geography”, Ptolemy utilized these advances to develop the coordinate system of latitude and longitude that is still in use. In his famous Geographike syntaxis, Ptolemy located 8,000 places on the surface of the Earth using this system. He also proposed new methods of map-making, including the creation of atlases. Although he used less accurate measurements of the circumference of the Earth, preferring the later and smaller calculation of the Stoic philosopher Posidonius to that of Eratosthenes, Ptolemy nevertheless contributed important descriptions and maps of the known world. His maps clearly indicated his understanding of the problems involved in representing the spherical Earth on a flat surface.

The travels, conquests, and colonizing activities of the Greeks resulted in the accumulation of considerable geographical information and stimulated geographical writing. Although Herodotus, writing in the 5th century bc, is generally considered to be the “father of history” he might also be considered the father of topographic description in geography. His great work History (from the Greek for “inquiry”) is not history as we know it today. It also includes information about earthquakes, the depths of the sea and delta-forming rivers, climates, and mountains, as well as details of human customs and traditions. Some 400 years later the geographer and historian Strabo wrote a 17-volume encyclopedia of the known world entitled Geographica, which includes attempts to explain cultural distinctiveness, and types of government and customs in particular places.

B

Medieval Geography

In part owing to the ascendancy of a Christian tradition that was inimical to Greek traditions of scientific inquiry, after about the 4th century ad the intellectual development of geography in Europe entered a period of stagnation that lasted until the 15th century. In addition, during the Middle Ages, Europeans carried out little travel and exploration. Only the Vikings of Scandinavia were active in exploration (see Viking Exploration). In contrast to this was the flowering of Islamic civilization from the 7th century. Arab scholars interpreted, tested, and added to the work of the ancient Greeks and also contributed much to exploration—the Islamic field of influence eventually stretched in a great 15,000-km (9,320-mi) arc from Mauritania in the west to Indonesia in the east. As early as the 8th century, Arab scholars were translating the works of their Greek predecessors. Only after these texts were translated into Latin did Greek geographical learning spread back into Europe during the 15th century, contributing to the renewed interest in exploration and geographical method during the Renaissance.

Among the major figures of Islamic geography are al-Muqaddasi, al-Idrisi, Ibn Batuta, and Ibn Khaldun. Al-Muqaddasi (945-988) has been described as the most eminent geographer of the Middle Ages. A pioneer of fieldwork, his book The Best Divisions of the Study of Climate is based solely on personal observation and extensive travel. The scientist al-Idrisi wrote another of the great geographical works of the medieval period (The Book of Roger), which contains information from his own travels and also reports from people sent to obtain new information. He also demonstrated that the five zones of the Greek climatic system did not correspond to reality, proposing instead a more sophisticated and accurate world climatic system. Ibn Batuta recorded his travels—extending from Spain in the west to China in the east, and from Timbuktu to the Russian steppe—in his book Rihlah (Travels). The geographer and historian Ibn Khaldun is best remembered for his monumental Muqaddamah, the introductory volume to his Kitab al-Ibar (Universal History), in which he analysed the rise and fall of empires, and established the foundation for historical geography.

In China, too, exploration and learning flourished. Chinese travellers “discovered” Europe and India long before their European counterparts reached China. At this time Chinese culture was the most efficient in the world in the practical application of knowledge. The study of geography was advanced beyond anything known in the West—among other things the Chinese used coordinates and triangulation to produce detailed maps. During the 14th century China broke with its traditional policy of isolation when the emperor sent one of the largest fleets then known to carry out one of the most comprehensive feats of exploration in history. Led by Zheng He, this fleet between 1405 and 1421 carried out six voyages reaching South East Asia, India, the Persian Gulf, eastern Africa, and Egypt.

C

The Age of Exploration

The travels of the Italian explorer Marco Polo in the 1200s, the Crusades of the 1100s and 1200s, and the re-entry of Greek learning into the intellectual world of Europe during the early 15th century paved the way for the period of explosion of geographical knowledge during the 15th and 16th centuries that became known as the Age of Exploration. The voyages of discovery were in many cases planned and supported by governments and merchant companies, and motivated by a variety of reasons, notably the spread of Christianity and trade—initially for spices, later for gold and slaves.

The first voyages were initiated in the early 15th century by Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, who wanted to find a route to the east that was not under Muslim control. By the time of Henry’s death in 1460 ships had reached the Guinea coast of West Africa; in 1473 the equator was crossed; in 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope; in 1497 Vasco da Gama made the first voyage from Europe to India; and in 1542 the Portuguese reached Japan. During this period Spain was also involved in exploration, but in the opposite (i.e. westerly) direction. The most notable explorations carried out under the Spanish aegis were those of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s and of Ferdinand Magellan in the early 16th century. It was Magellan who finally completed the western route, reaching Guam in the Marianas Islands in 1521. He sailed on to the Philippines, where he was killed. His crew completed the circumnavigation across the Indian Ocean back to Spain in 1522, confirming finally that the Earth was spherical. As the economic returns of the Portuguese and Spanish discoveries began to be appreciated the other European powers sponsored their own voyages, led by such people as John and Sebastian Cabot, Francis Drake, Jacques Cartier, and Sir Martin Frobisher.

The voyages of discovery were important in several ways for the subsequent development of geography. First, they transformed European knowledge about the Earth into a more or less coherent body of knowledge. This development was encouraged by a resurgence of topographical writing. Numerous accounts (of varying accuracy) of voyages and encyclopedic works on the geography of the world were published. Secondly, they brought about important developments in cartography. For example, the confirmation of the spherical nature of the globe posed considerable problems for map-makers used to representing a flat Earth. It was the Flemish geographer, cartographer, and mathematician Gerardus Mercator who solved the mathematical problems of representing three dimensions on a flat surface, devising in 1568 the system of map projection that was named after him and is still widely used. It was during this period also that the first globes were made and surveying skills and instruments developed. Thirdly, it reinforced the relationship between geography and territorial expansion, first perceived by Strabo, that was to peak during the empire-building of the 19th century. Finally, the new information about the realities of the world combined with parallel developments in astronomy to challenge, and ultimately to shatter, the prevailing cosmological traditions. During the medieval period Greek traditions of scientific enquiry had been replaced by a literal interpretation of the Bible and the development of a cosmology in which a flat, disc-shaped Earth was at the centre of the universe and Jerusalem at the centre of the Earth.

D

Foundations of Modern Geography

Although geography had begun to emerge as a separate intellectual pursuit during the 16th century, it had no clearly defined boundaries: anyone who wrote about the Earth could claim to be a geographer. In fact it was four German scholars who, between the mid-17th and mid-19th centuries, are considered to be largely responsible for the establishment of geography’s intellectual boundaries and with providing it with a philosophical and theoretical framework. The first of these was the geographer Bernhardus Varenius. Through his Geographia generalis, published in 1650, he finally delimited geography as something separate from cosmography by defining it as being concerned only with the Earth. His other main contribution to the formalization of geography as an intellectual discipline was his division of the subject into general and special geography, originating what we now call systematic and regional geography.

General geography deals with the world as a unit and is restricted to the physical elements of the Earth that can by studied using scientific methods and by the application of natural laws. Varenius had intended to follow Geographia generalis with a treatise on special geography, but died before he could start it, aged just 28. However, he defined special geography as the description of particular places based upon “celestial conditions”, including climate and climatic zones; terrestrial conditions; and human conditions, including trade, settlement, and forms of government. His incorporation of human geography into special rather than general geography reflects the problems of applying natural laws to social and cultural phenomena.

The second was the philosopher Immanuel Kant. Although best known for his critiques of science, morality, and art, Kant also lectured on geography for 40 years from 1756. His views on the subject survive in various course notes and in Pysische geographie (Physical Geography), published in 1802, two years before his death. In this book he argued that geography and history are the two fundamental sciences as together they make up all human knowledge. Geography, he said, was description according to space; history, description according to time. This linking of geography with space was to have a profound influence on the future development of the discipline, even though later geographers have found it impracticable to draw such a sharp division between space and time. Kant also differentiated between physical geography and human geography, considering the former to be the foundation of all other geographies. These he divided into five types: moral, political, commercial, theological, and mathematical geography. The first four deal with expressions of human occupancy of the Earth, while mathematical geography deals with the shape, size, and motion of the Earth and its relationships to the solar system.

Kant had provided geography with a philosophical foundation. Alexander Humboldt and Carl Ritter during the first half of the 19th century laid down its scientific foundations. Considered to be the fathers of modern geography, they were united in their criticism of the unsystematic treatment of geographical data by most of their predecessors and in their belief in the unity of nature. For them the role of research was to clarify this unity using scientific, comparative inductive methods. An extensive traveller and polymath, Humboldt was also a gifted field observer who applied his knowledge of physical processes to the systematic classification and comparative description of geographical features. He devised methods for measuring the phenomena he observed. His greatest contributions lay in the development of systematic physical geography, but he also produced a number of classic geographical studies based on his travels in Latin America and Russia. His masterwork is Kosmos (Cosmos), published in five volumes between 1845 and 1852. Subtitled Sketch of a Physical Description of the World, it is an attempt to assemble all contemporary knowledge of the physical world and is considered one of the great geographical works of all time.

Ritter differed from Humboldt in that his views were shaped by his religious outlook. His scientific stance was teleological—he believed that unity in nature formed a God-given system to further the development of human beings and that the ultimate aim of scientific research was to discover the plans of God. However, he combined this basic standpoint with critical scientific precision. Like Humboldt he had a great ability to systematize extensive material which he applied primarily to the study of particular places. Because of this he is often considered to be the father of modern regional geography. His regional approach tended to be human in focus and to emphasize regional and historical coherence. The culmination of his work was Die Erdkunde im Verhältnis zur Natur und Geschichte des Menschen (Geography and Its Relation to Nature and the History of Man). Published in 19 parts between 1817 and 1859 this was intended ultimately to be a comparative study of all the world’s major regions, but was never finished—the published volumes concentrate on Africa and Asia. Together with Kosmos, Erdkunde is considered to be one of the two founding works of modern geography.

At the same time as Humboldt and Ritter were establishing the scientific basis of geographical studies, the institutionalization of geography was beginning with the foundation of the first geographical societies. The earliest were those founded in Paris (1821), Berlin (1827), and London (1830; see Royal Geographical Society). Others quickly followed, and by 1890 more than 80 had been established in all parts of the world including Mexico (1833), Brazil (1838), Russia (1845), and the United States (the American Geographical Society in 1851 and the National Geographic Society in 1888). Many of these societies sponsored important exploratory expeditions. The aim of such activities was not always purely scientific, however. In Europe, in particular, they were often carried out in support of national ambitions. Indeed, geography generally played a central role in 19th century European imperialism, by providing information essential for the colonization and subsequent administration and economic exploitation of new territories. Because of this role, geography became one of the leading subjects in the public elementary school systems that were being established throughout Europe and North America at this time.

In contrast to this, geography found it far harder to take its place as a university-level discipline. It was hampered first by its popular identification with the descriptive accounts of explorers, which undermined its claims to scientific respectability. The second stumbling block was the universal nature of geography’s interests—encompassing both the natural and human environments—which made it appear vague and diffuse to other academics, and without a distinctive area of study and methodology. In fact it was not until the early 1870s that the first university chairs were established, in Switzerland and Germany. Other continental European countries, including France, began to follow suit towards the end of the decade. In Britain and the United States, however, the establishment of geography as an academic discipline met with stronger resistance. In the former, although permanent university teaching began with the appointment of Halford Mackinder to a readership at Oxford University in 1887, the first departments of geography were not established until the beginning of the 20th century (Oxford 1900; Cambridge 1908). Similarly, in the United States, although individuals were appointed to teach geography from the late 1870s, the first department was not established until 1903 in Chicago.