History of Geographic Thought

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History of Geographic Thought
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• The Spatial Organization of Human Activity

• Geography is a spatial science (the study of
  place/space)
• Human activities are
• located in space at particular places
• regular (w/ discernible patterns)
• able to be described and understood

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Ancient Map-Making

• Earliest maps clay tablets by ancient
  Babylonians
• Catal Huyük village map (Turkey) 8,000
  yrs. old
• China silk maps from 2nd-century BCE
• Mayans/Incas maps of conquered territories

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Greek geographic thought

• geography(earth-writing) coined by
  Eratosthenes
• closely estimated Earths circumference

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• Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth's
  circumference
• Syene (S) is located on the Tropic of Cancer, so
  that at summer solstice the sun appears at the
  zenith, directly overhead. In Alexandria (A) the
  sun is south of the zenith at the same time. So
  the circumference of earth can be calculated
  being times the distance d between A and S.

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• Medieval Mapping
• Chinese
• Chinese geographers highly advanced
• Invented compass in 11th-century
• Burned sticks of incense to measure time
• Muslim world
• Arab geographers (700-1400) translated
• Greek geographic works
• Religious need for good maps?
• holy pilgrimage to Mecca prayer facing Mecca 5
  times a day

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Muslim World in 1500
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Meanwhile, in Europe

• The medieval Christian T-O map
• T Mediterranean, the Nile, the Don
• O encircling ocean

Crusader map of Jerusalem, dating from the 12th-
century (east is at the top)
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Modern Geography

• Started during the Scientific Revolution
• From the late Renaissance to the Enlightenment
• From trust in a persons mind ? external
  observation
• Copernican Revolution (1543) to Newtons
  Principia (1687)
• A Note on The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
• Thomas Kuhn
• How science changes
• Normal science
• Anomalies
• Crisis
• Revolutionary science

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I Kant Believe It.

• Immanuel Kant
• Human knowledge could be classified in three
  ways
• Classify knowledge in terms of type (zoology,
  geology, etc.)
• Studying things in a temporal dimension (history)
• Facts relative to spatial relationships
  (geography!)
• Geography types
• Physical, mathematical, moral, political,
  commercial, and theological

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A PHILOSOPHY OF SPACE A PHILOSOPHY OF SPACE A PHILOSOPHY OF SPACE
ABSOLUTE SUBSTANTIVE RELATIVE
knowledge gained through experience fundamental laws (Cogito ergo sum) scientific or religious a priori knowledge exists outside of us reality is perception knowledge is subjective between objects we produce space
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By the end of the 19th century

• Geography a discipline in world universities
• The Royal Geographic Society is founded in
  England
• The National Geographic Society is founded in the
  US.

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In the 20th Century

• Environmental Determinism
• Peoples physical, moral, and mental attributes
  are directly caused by natural environment
• Yeah. No.
• Regional Geography
• Simply looking at places (areal differentiation)
• Quantitative Revolution
• Numbers, numbers, numbers!
• Critical Geography
• Marxist, feminist, postmodern geographies

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Pattisons Four Themes (1964)

• Spatial Tradition
• True essentials geometry and movement
• Location, place, distance, etc.
• Area Studies Tradition
• Nature of places, character and differentiation
• Human-Land Tradition
• Interaction between human and environment
• Earth Science Tradition
• Physical geography

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Today GPS and GIS!

• Global Positioning System
• 24 orbiting satellites tracking stations on the
  ground portable receivers
• Locations determined by time delay in signals
  received from 3 satellites
• Geographic Information System
• Software package computer database
• Vector approach precise location of each object
  is described
• Raster approach the study area is divided into a
  set of small square cells, and the content is
  quantified/described.

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Lets look at how this technology is used!

• http//education.nationalgeographic.com/education/
  media/geospatial-revolution/?ar_a1

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The pioneering research of Paul Baran in the
1960s, who envisioned a communications network
that would survive a major enemy attackedthe
distributed network structure offered the best
survivability.
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Advanced Research Projects Agency
Network (ARPANET)
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Who has access to the Internet in the US
now?http//broadbandmap.gov