Portal:Geography
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Geography (from Greek: γεωγραφία, geographia, literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of the Earth and planets. The first person to use the word γεωγραφία was Eratosthenes (276–194 BC). Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but also how they have changed and come to be.
Geography is often defined in terms of two branches: human geography and physical geography. Human geography is concerned with the study of people and their communities, cultures, economies, and interactions with the environment by studying their relations with and across space and place. Physical geography is concerned with the study of processes and patterns in the natural environment like the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and geosphere.
The four historical traditions in geographical research are spatial analyses of natural and the human phenomena, area studies of places and regions, studies of human-land relationships, and the Earth sciences. Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical sciences". (Full article...)
In this month
- 1 March 1910 – Saltspring Island re-titled to its current name according to records of Geographic Board of Canada
- 1 March 2007 – February–March 2007 tornado outbreak (pictured) hit Americus, Georgia, United States
- 9 March 1969 – Death of Walter Christaller, German geographer whose principal contribution to the discipline is Central Place Theory
- 25 March 1979 – Minor district in Bueng Sam Phan District, Thailand upgraded to full district
A city is a large human settlement. It can be defined as a permanent and densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, production of goods, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organisations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving efficiency of goods and service distribution. (Full article...)
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Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858. This prompted Darwin to publish On the Origin of Species.
Like Darwin, Wallace did extensive fieldwork—first in the Amazon River basin, and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line, which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia. He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography". (Full article...)Did you know
- ... that the dark and fatalistic humour of Canadian comedians has been attributed to the dangers of Canada's climate and geography?
- ... that during the collision of India with Asia, the southern part of the Tibetan Plateau achieved its high elevation before the northern part?
- ... that although Constance Kies was a nutrition scientist, she majored in English, and minored in history, geography, library science, and home economics?
- ... that glaciation in Wisconsin 17 thousand years ago helped create its unique geography?
- ... that Johann Reinhold Forster's 1778 book Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World has been described as "the beginning of modern geography"?
- ... that the first known paravian dinosaurs were from China, but they now live on every continent?
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