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Geography (from the Greek words Ge (γη) or Gaea (γαια), both meaning "Earth", and graphein (γραφειν) meaning "to describe" or "to write"or "to map") is the study of the Earth's features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity. A literal translation would be "to describe the Earth". There are at least four traditional views on geography among geographers where emphasis is on the spatial analysis of natural and human phenomena (geography as a study of distribution), on area studies (places and regions), on man-land relationships, and earth science (study of the earth, its waters, and the atmosphere.)

Introduction

Traditionally, geography as well as geographers has been viewed as the same as cartography and people who study place names. Although many geographers are trained in toponymy and cartography, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the spatial and temporal distribution of phenomena, processes and feature as well as the interaction of humans and their environment. As space and place affect a variety of topics such as economics, health, climate, plants and animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary.

Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main sub fields: human geography and physical geography. The former focuses largely 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. The latter examines the natural environment and how the climate, vegetation & life, soil, water and landforms and produced and interact. As a result of the two subfields using different approaches a third field has emerged, which is environmental geography. Environmental geography combines physical and human geography and looks at the interactions between the environment and humans.

History of geography

See main article: History of geography

The foundations of geography can be traced to the ancient cultures, such as the Greeks, who were the first to explore geography as both art and science, whether through Cartography, Philosophy, and Literature, or through Mathematics. There is some debate about who was the first person to assert that the Earth is spherical in shape, with the credit going either to Parmenides or Pythagoras. Anaxagoras was able to demonstrate that the profile of the Earth was circular by explaining eclipses. However he still believed that the Earth was a flat disk, as did many of his contemporaries. One of the first estimates of the radius of the Earth was made by Eratosthenes.

Read more at Wikipedia.org