History of Geographic Thought

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

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

Greek geographic thought: “geography”(earth-writing): coined by Eratosthenes  closely estimated Earth’s circumference

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 δ between A and S.

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

Muslim World in 1500

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 12 th - century (east is at the top)

“Modern” Geography  Started during the Scientific Revolution  From the late Renaissance to the Enlightenment  From trust in a person’s mind  external observation  Copernican Revolution (1543) to Newton’s Principia (1687)  A Note on The Structure of Scientific Revolutions  Thomas Kuhn  How science changes  Normal science  Anomalies  Crisis  Revolutionary science

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

A PHILOSOPHY OF SPACE ABSOLUTESUBSTANTIVERELATIVE 1.knowledge gained through experience 2.fundamental laws (Cogito ergo sum) 3.scientific or religious 1.“a priori”: knowledge exists outside of us 2.reality is perception 1.knowledge is subjective between objects 2.we produce “space”

By the end of the 19 th century…  Geography a discipline in world universities  The Royal Geographic Society is founded in England  The National Geographic Society is founded in the US.

In the 20 th Century… O Environmental Determinism O People’s physical, moral, and mental attributes are directly caused by natural environment O Yeah. No. O Regional Geography O Simply looking at places (areal differentiation) O Quantitative Revolution O Numbers, numbers, numbers! O Critical Geography O Marxist, feminist, postmodern geographies

Pattison’s Four Themes (1964) O Spatial Tradition O True essentials: geometry and movement O Location, place, distance, etc. O Area Studies Tradition O Nature of places, character and differentiation O Human-Land Tradition O Interaction between human and environment O Earth Science Tradition O Physical geography

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

Let’s look at how this technology is used! O edia/geospatial-revolution/?ar_a=1 edia/geospatial-revolution/?ar_a=1

The pioneering research of Paul Baran in the 1960s, who envisioned a communications network that would survive a major enemy attacked…the distributed network structure offered the best survivability.

Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET)

Who has access to the Internet in the US now?