Geography, History

Geography is the study of the Earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity. Geography research addresses both the questions of where, as well as why phenomena occurs in particular places. more...

The word comes from the Greek words Ge (γη) or Gaea (γαια), both meaning "Earth", and graphein (γραφειν) meaning "to describe" or "to write".

"Mere place names are not geography. To know by heart a whole gazeteer full of them would not, in itself, constitute anyone a geographer. Geography has higher aims than this... to trace out the great laws of nature and to mark their influence upon man. In a word, geography is a science, a thing not of mere names, but of argument and reason, of cause and effect." -- William Hughes (King's College, 1863)

Since place matters for everything from economics and health, to climate, plants and animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary. Geography draws upon and contributes to numerous other knowledge disciplines. Geography is broadly divided into human geography and physical geography, with subfields of geography including economic geography, political geography, urban geography, biogeography, geomorphology, coastal geography, and others.

With advances in computer technology, the analytical and spatial data management tools available to geographers, including Geographic Information Systems and spatial data analysis, are now allowing geographers for more rigorious, quantitative analysis of spatial phenomena. Though, the qualitative approach to geography remains important, with ethnography and other methodologies used to investigate theories of spatial phenomena.

Read more at Wikipedia.org