Geography (from Greek ?e???af?a, geographia, lit.

"earth description"[1]) is a f
ield of science dedicated to the study of the lands, the features, the inhabitan
ts, and the phenomena of Earth.[2] A literal translation would be "to describe o
r picture or write about the earth". The first person to use the word "geography
" was Eratosthenes (276 194 BC).[3] Four historical traditions in geographical res
earch are spatial analysis of the natural and the human phenomena (geography as
the study of distribution), area studies (places and regions), study of the huma
n-land relationship, and research in the Earth sciences.[4] Nonetheless, modern
geography is an all-encompassing discipline that foremost seeks to understand th
e Earth and all of its human and natural complexities not merely where objects are
, but how they have changed and come to be. Geography has been called "the world
discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical science". Geogra
phy is divided into two main branches: human geography and physical geography.[5
][6][7]
Contents [hide]
1 Introduction
2 Branches
2.1 Physical geography
2.2 Human geography
2.3 Integrated geography
2.4 Geomatics
2.5 Regional geography
2.6 Related fields
3 Techniques
3.1 Cartography
3.2 Geographic information systems
3.3 Remote sensing
3.4 Quantitative methods
3.5 Qualitative methods
4 History
5 Notable geographers
6 Institutions and societies
7 Publications
8 See also
9 Notes and references
10 External links
Introduction[edit]
Traditionally, geographers have been viewed the same way as cartographers and pe
ople who study place names and numbers. Although many geographers are trained in
toponymy and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study
the spatial and the temporal distribution of phenomena, processes, and features
as well as the interaction of humans and their environment.[8] Because space an
d place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants a
nd animals; geography is highly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature
of the geographical approach depends on an attentiveness to the relationship bet
ween physical and human phenomena and its spatial patterns.
...mere names of places...are not geography...know by heart a whole gazetteer fu
ll of them would not, in itself, constitute anyone a geographer. Geography has h
igher aims than this: it seeks to classify phenomena (alike of the natural and o
f the political world, in so far as it treats of the latter), to compare, to gen
eralize, to ascend from effects to causes, and, in doing so, to trace out the la
ws of nature and to mark their influences upon man. This is 'a description of th
e world' that is Geography. In a word Geography is a Science a thing not of mere nam
es but of argument and reason, of cause and effect.[9]
William Hughes, 1863
Just as all phenomena exist in time and thus have a history, they also exist in
space and have a geography.[10]

United States National Research Council, 1997

Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main subsidiary fields:
human geography and physical geography. The former largely focuses on the built
environment and how humans create, view, manage, and influence space. The latter
examines the natural environment, and how organisms, climate, soil, water, and
landforms produce and interact.[11] The difference between these approaches led
to a third field, environmental geography, which combines the physical and the h
uman geography, and looks at the interactions between the environment and humans
.[8]