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Improving Your Knowledge of Geography: Why Is Geography Important?

Most of us remember geography as a middle school class in which we memorized countries, states and capitals. This subject also includes knowing the various mountains, rivers and oceans of the world. While many of us may have forgotten this knowledge, knowing modern geography is important to our social and political understandings.

Essentially, this all-encompassing discipline seeks to comprehend the world and its goings on via an understanding of place and location. In other words, geographers study:

• where things are
• how they got there
• why they are distributed that way
• how distribution affects the localized and world population.

How Geography Was Started
Ancient Greek scholar Eratosthenes was supposedly the first to use the term "geography." Not only did he derive our modern system of global longitude and latitude, but he also was the first to determine the circumference of the globe. By measuring the changing angle of the sun on various dates, he was able to come up with a circumference measure that was only off by five percent (He calculated the circumference to be 39,690 km, and the actual size is 40,008 km).

Alexander von Humboldt, also known as the "father of modern geography," studied the environment around him, delving into the relationship of biological life and geographical locations. Most of Humboldt's work was done in Latin America during the early 1800s. William Morris Davis, the father of American geography, helped establish geography as an academic discipline. His most notable work, done through the late 1800s through the early 1900s, was in the study of how rivers and water erosion create new landforms.

Increasing Your Geography Knowledge
One of the most helpful ways to improve your knowledge of geography is by purchasing an Atlas. As you hear or read about events in cities and countries around the world, refer to your atlas to see where these locations are. This technique is especially helpful for understanding conflict and tension between countries and cultures in modern times.

For younger geographers, flash cards are an excellent method of memorization. Outlines of countries or states with the names on the back (or states on the front and capitals on the back) are an excellent way to reinforce memorization of geographical facts. As with adults learning geography, buying a visual aid will give children a better understanding of how the regions of the world fit together. Getting a colorful map is likely to be the best option, as colors and other illustrations are more likely to engage children.

As you strive to improve your knowledge of geography, keep in mind that understanding this subject requires more than rote memorization of geographical terms. The purpose of geography is to identify how spatial relations of lands and resources affect social interaction and cultural evolution.

For example, recognizing that certain regions are rich in oil or other natural resources explains why some of the modern political and social conflict exists today. Similarly, identifying how particular cities lie in major ports or in locations central to many other resources explains why they have become social and cultural hubs of a particular country.

Environmental Geography This subject is an offshoot of geography that relates humans to their environments and natural resources. Environmental geography studies the patterns between consumptions and waste patterns. It plays a large part in understanding how humans affect and change the environment.

Simply put, geography teaches us to ask questions about the earth. It seeks out an understanding between our physical environment and our social response. Modern geography is closely tied with sociology, environmentalism and political science.