Human geography facts for kids

This old map by John Snow shows where cholera cases happened in London in 1854. It's a great example of how maps can help understand diseases.

Human geography is a part of geography that looks at how people and their surroundings connect. It studies how human groups, cultures, and economies are spread out and how they interact with the environment. For example, it helps us understand things like urban sprawl (when cities spread out) and urban redevelopment (when old parts of cities are rebuilt). Human geography uses different ways to study these connections, like looking at stories and experiences (qualitative methods) or using numbers and statistics (quantitative methods).

A Look Back: The History of Human Geography

Geography wasn't always a formal school subject. For a long time, people studied geography mostly through making maps. This changed around the 1700s.

• Early Societies: The Royal Geographical Society started in England in 1830. Later, in 1888, the National Geographic Society began in the United States. They started the National Geographic magazine, which helped many people learn about geography. These groups also supported research and education. The American Association of Geographers was founded in 1904.

• Mapping Diseases: One of the first times geographic ideas were used in a new way was by John Snow. He was a doctor, not a geographer. In 1854, he made a map of a cholera outbreak in London. His map showed where sick people lived, helping to find the source of the disease. This was an early step for health geography.

• Environment's Role: For a while, people believed in something called environmental determinism. This idea, popular in the 1800s, suggested that the environment directly shaped people's habits and even their thinking. However, this idea was later criticized. It wasn't scientific enough and was sometimes used to support unfair ideas like racism.

• Studying Regions: Later, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, geographers focused on regional geography. They tried to divide areas into regions and understand what made each one special, looking at both human and natural features.

• The Quantitative Revolution: By the 1960s, geographers wanted to be more scientific. They started using statistics and math to solve problems about space. This was called the quantitative revolution. Today, this is seen in tools like geographic information systems (GIS), which use computers to map and analyze data.

• Critical Geography: From the 1970s, some geographers felt that just using numbers wasn't enough. This led to critical geography. They wanted to understand how power, fairness, and human experiences shaped geography. For example, radical geography looked at how economic systems affected places and people. Humanistic geography focused more on people's feelings and experiences of places.

• New Ways of Thinking: These changes led to many new areas of study in human geography, like feminist geography (looking at how gender affects space) and new cultural geography (studying how cultures create and use space).

Main Areas of Study in Human Geography

Human geography has several important fields that help us understand the world:

Cultural Geography: Understanding People's Ways of Life

Cultural geography explores how different cultures create and use space. It looks at how things like language, religion, and traditions change from one place to another. It also studies how humans live and interact in different areas.

This picture shows terraced rice farming in Asia, a great example of how culture shapes the land.

Development Geography: How People Live and Grow

Development geography studies how well people live in different parts of the world. It looks at things like standard of living and quality of life. It also examines where economic activities are located and how they are organized across the Earth.

Economic Geography: Where Money and Business Happen

Economic Geography: A busy market in Myanmar, showing how people buy and sell goods.

Economic geography looks at the connections between human economic systems (like businesses and trade), countries, and the natural environment.

• Sub-areas: This includes Marketing geography (where to sell things) and Transportation geography (how goods and people move).

Health Geography: Mapping Sickness and Wellness

Health geography uses geographic information to study health, disease, and health care. It looks at how and why diseases spread or are controlled, and how people's health is connected to their environment.

Historical Geography: Looking at the Past of Places

Historical geography studies the geographies of the past. It explores how places and regions have changed over time. Many historical geographers look at how people interacted with their environment in the past and how they shaped the landscape we see today.

Political Geography: Power and Places

Political geography studies how political decisions and power affect different places. It also looks at how the way places are organized can influence political processes.

• Sub-areas: This includes Electoral geography (how elections are affected by location), Geopolitics (how geography affects international relations), and Military geography (how geography plays a role in military actions).

Population Geography: Where People Live and Move

Population geography studies how populations are spread out, what groups of people live where, and how people move from one place to another. It looks at how these patterns are related to the environment and location.

Settlement Geography: Studying Where People Build Homes

Settlement geography looks at both cities and countryside areas. It studies where buildings and roads are concentrated. These are places where most economic activities happen in industries like manufacturing and services.

Urban Geography: The Study of Cities

Urban geography focuses on cities, towns, and other places where many people live close together. It looks at why a settlement is located where it is (its site) and how it relates to other settlements (its situation). It also studies how cities are organized inside, including where different groups of people live and how infrastructure is laid out.

Different Ways to Study Human Geography

Within each of these areas, geographers can use different ways of thinking or "philosophical approaches" in their research. For example, a geographer studying cities might also be a feminist geographer, looking at how gender affects city life.

Some of these approaches include:

• Animal geographies (how animals fit into human spaces)
• Behavioral geography (how people's actions shape places)
• Critical geography (questioning power and fairness)
• Feminist geography (looking at gender and space)
• Marxist geography (how economic systems affect places)
• Spatial analysis (using data to understand patterns)
• Time geography (how people move through space and time)

Famous Human Geographers

See also

In Spanish: Geografía humana para niños

• AP Human Geography (a high school course)
• Physical geography (the study of Earth's natural features)