Physical geography

Physical geography examines the natural environment and how the climate, vegetation
& life, soil, water, and landforms are produced and interact.[7]

Fields of physical geography

Geomorphology study of landforms and the processes that them, and more broadly, of
the processes controlling the topography of any planet. Seeks to understand why
landscapes look the way they do, to understand landform history and dynamics, and to
predict future changes through a combination of field observation, physical experiment,
and numerical modeling.
Hydrology study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water throughout the
Earth, including the hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental watershed
sustainability.
o Glaciology study of glaciers, or more generally ice and natural phenomena that
involve ice.
o Oceanography studies a wide range of topics pertaining to oceans, including
marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and
geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and
fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean
and across its boundaries.
Biogeography study of the distribution of species spatially and temporally. Over areal
ecological changes, it is also tied to the concepts of species and their past, or present
living 'refugium', their survival locales, or their interim living sites. It aims to reveal
where organisms live, and at what abundance.[8]
Climatology study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged
over a period of time.[9]
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on
weather processes and short term forecasting (in contrast with climatology).
Pedology study of soils in their natural environment[10] that deals with pedogenesis, soil
morphology, and soil classification.
Palaeogeography study of what the geography was in times past, most often concerning
the physical landscape, but also the human or cultural environment.
Coastal geography study of the dynamic interface between the ocean and the land,
incorporating both the physical geography (i.e. coastal geomorphology, geology and
oceanography) and the human geography (sociology and history) of the coast. It involves
an understanding of coastal weathering processes, particularly wave action, sediment
movement and weather, and also the ways in which humans interact with the coast.
Quaternary science focuses on the Quaternary period, which encompasses the last 2.6
million years, including the last ice age and the Holocene period.
Landscape ecology the relationship between spatial patterns of urban development and
ecological processes on a multitude of landscape scales and organizational levels.[11][12][13]

Approaches of physical geography

 Quantitative geography Quantitative research tools and methods applied to geography.
See also the quantitative revolution.
Systems approach

Human geography

Human geography one of the two main subfields of geography, it is the study of human
use and understanding of the world and the processes which have affected it. Human
geography broadly differs from physical geography in that it focuses on the built
environment and how space is created, viewed, and managed by humans as well as the
influence humans have on the space they occupy.[7]

Fields of human geography

Cultural geography study of cultural products and norms and their variations across and
relations to spaces and places. It focuses on describing and analyzing the ways language,
religion, economy, government and other cultural phenomena vary or remain constant,
from one place to another and on explaining how humans function spatially.[14]
o Children's geographies study of places and spaces of children's lives,
characterized experientially, politically and ethically. Children's geographies rests
on the idea that children as a social group share certain characteristics which are
experientially, politically and ethically significant and which are worthy of study.
The pluralisation in the title is intended to imply that children's lives will be
markedly different in differing times and places and in differing circumstances
such as gender, family, and class. The range of focii within children's geographies
include:
Children and the city
Children and the countryside
Children and technology
Children and nature,
Children and globalization
Methodologies of researching children's worlds
Ethics of researching children's worlds
Otherness of childhood
o Animal geographies studies the spaces and places occupied by animals in
human culture, because social life and space is heavily populated by animals of
many differing kinds and in many differing ways (e.g. farm animals, pets, wild
animals in the city). Another impetus that has influenced the development of the
field are ecofeminist and other environmentalist viewpoints on nature-society
relations (including questions of animal welfare and rights).
o Language geography studies the geographic distribution of language or its
constituent elements. There are two principal fields of study within the geography
of language:
1. Geography of languages deals with the distribution through history and
space of languages,[15]
 2. Linguistic geography deals with regional linguistic variations within
languages.[16][17][18][19][20]
o Sexuality and space encompasses all relationships and interactions between
human sexuality, space, and place, including the geographies of LGBT residence,
public sex environments, sites of queer resistance, global sexualities, sex
tourism,[21] the geographies of prostitution and adult entertainment, use of
sexualised locations in the arts,[22][23] and sexual citizenship.[24]
o Religion geography study of the impact of geography, i.e. place and space, on
religious belief.[25]
Development geography study of the Earth's geography with reference to the standard
of living and quality of life of its human inhabitants. Measures development by looking at
economic, political and social factors, and seeks to understand both the geographical
causes and consequences of varying development, in part by comparing More
Economically Developed Countries (MEDCs) with Less Economically Developed
Countries (LEDCs).
Economic geography study of the location, distribution and spatial organization of
economic activities across the world. Subjects of interest include but are not limited to
the location of industries, economies of agglomeration (also known as "linkages"),
transportation, international trade and development, real estate, gentrification, ethnic
economies, gendered economies, core-periphery theory, the economics of urban form, the
relationship between the environment and the economy (tying into a long history of
geographers studying culture-environment interaction), and globalization.
o Marketing geography a discipline within marketing analysis which uses
geolocation (geographic information) in the process of planning and
implementation of marketing activities.[26] It can be used in any aspect of the
marketing mix the product, price, promotion, or place (geo targeting).
o Transportation geography branch of economic geography that investigates
spatial interactions between people, freight and information. It studies humans
and their use of vehicles or other modes of traveling as well as how markets are
serviced by flows of finished goods and raw materials.
Health geography application of geographical information, perspectives, and methods
to the study of health, disease, and health care, to provide a spatial understanding of a
population's health, the distribution of disease in an area, and the environment's effect on
health and disease. It also deals with accessibility to health care and spatial distribution of
health care providers.
o Time geography study of the temporal factor on spatial human activities within
the following constraints:

1. Authority - limits of accessibility to certain places or domains placed on individuals by

owners or authorities
2. Capability - limitations on the movement of individuals, based on their nature. For
example, movement is restricted by biological factors, such as the need for food, drink,
and sleep
3. Coupling - restraint of an individual, anchoring him or her to a location while interacting
with other individuals in order to complete a task
 Historical geography study of the human, physical, fictional, theoretical, and "real"
geographies of the past, and seeks to determine how cultural features of various societies
across the planet emerged and evolved, by understanding how a place or region changes
through time, including how people have interacted with their environment and created
the cultural landscape.
Political geography study of the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and
the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures.
Basically, the inter-relationships between people, state, and territory.
o Electoral geography study of the relationship between election results and the
regions they affect (such as the environmental impact of voting decisions), and of
the effects of regional factors upon voting behavior.
o Geopolitics analysis of geography, history and social science with reference to
spatial politics and patterns at various scales, ranging from the level of the state to
international.
o Strategic geography concerned with the control of, or access to, spatial areas
that have an impact on the security and prosperity of nations.
o Military geography the application of geographic tools, information, and
techniques to solve military problems in peacetime or war.
Population geography study of the ways in which spatial variations in the distribution,
composition, migration, and growth of populations are related to the nature of places.
Tourism geography study of travel and tourism, as an industry and as a social and
cultural activity, and their impact on places, including the environmental impact of
tourism, the geographies of tourism and leisure economies, answering tourism industry
and management concerns and the sociology of tourism and locations of tourism.
Urban geography the study of urban areas, in terms of concentration, infrastructure,
economy, and environmental impacts.