Expanded Definition of Geography

617 Words3 Pages
Expanded Definition of Geography For many grade-school students, the definition of geography is simplistic, referencing only the physical locations of cities, states, bodies of water, countries, and continents. In Greek, the term “geography” translates to the description of the earth. This very broad and generalized definition is much more suitable to geography. Geographical information is constantly changing. Weather, human interaction, politics, and economics are all contributing factors in the way the physical environment changes. The text books that were written years ago may no longer be relevant to a larger population, a new city name, the changes in erosion, or the borders that once existed. This is one reason that geographers are constantly studying new information and updating maps or statistics. As there are many aspects related to the earth’s description, so are there areas of study within geography. For example, physical geography is the study of characteristics of the physical environment. The natural science aspect of geography is studied through physical geography (Berman & Renwick, 2011). Geography also reaches into the world of sociology through the subfields of human geography and cultural geography. These two fields study the uniquely human contributions to geography like language, industry, architecture, and group formation (Berman & Renwick, 2011). In order to classify and organize this geographical information, geographers create maps through the field of cartography. Every 10 years, the United States conducts a census to count the number of citizens in the country. The information gathered from the census is used to guide political and economic decisions, to understand cultural trends and their relationship to their communities, to influence business and educational decisions, and many other activities (US Dept of Commerce, 2012).

More about Expanded Definition of Geography

Open Document