Generally speaking, human geography can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. Human geography in a broad sense includes social and cultural geography, political geography and economic geography, while human geography in a narrow sense refers to social and cultural geography, excluding economic geography.
The development of human geography has experienced the accumulation of knowledge, the formation of disciplines and the evolution of theories, the differentiation of disciplines and the innovation of theoretical methods. According to its development order, it can be divided into three stages: ancient, modern and modern.
Ancient stage
human geography
This is a period of accumulation of geographical knowledge, which is mainly described by fragments, and various discussions about the relationship between man and land have appeared.
In ancient geography books and other ancient books in China, there are many discussions about the relationship between man and land, including the determinism of geographical environment of "people's livelihood is different" in Book of Rites Wang Zhi, the thought of "weather is not as good as geography, geography is not as good as harmony between people" in Mencius, and Wang Chong's On Balance in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
human geography
From the 5th century BC to the 3rd century BC, many ancient geography books recorded a large number of human geography phenomena. At the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, Gu's "The Benefit of the World and the Benefit of the Country" and Gu Zuyu's "A Summary of Reading History and Geography" discussed some problems of the relationship between man and land. However, in ancient China, there was no systematic human geography works to express the thought of man-land relationship.
In the west, geography has always regarded the earth as the hometown of mankind. Scholars in ancient Greece and Rome, such as Herodotus and Strappo, all discussed the phenomenon of human geography in their works.
In the Middle Ages, some isolated and closed monarchies were formed in Western Europe, with the decline of economy and culture and the corresponding stagnation of the development of human geography. At the same time, the geography of Arab countries has also made great progress, and Idrisi and other scholars have recorded many human geography phenomena in their works.
After the great discovery
European countries have published various geographical works, many of which are descriptions of human geography around the world, and most of them focus on the study of races and settlements, which greatly promoted the development of human geography.
Modern stage
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/kloc-from the beginning of the 9th century to the 1950s, geography entered a period in which different schools and theories emerged, and various disciplines were established and formed a system. /kloc-in the 0/9th century, geography began to form two branches: nature and humanity. The founders of modern scientific geography, A von humboldt and C Ritter, established early theories for the study of physical geography and human geography respectively. Since then, human geography has emerged a series of theories, established various branches and formed a system.
Formation and evolution
Books related to human geography
Ritter used empirical and comparative methods to study the causal relationship of various geographical phenomena in various regions of the world. In his book Geography-The Relationship between Geography and Humanistic Quality and History (2nd edition, 1822 ~ 1859), he discussed the relationship between natural phenomena and humanistic phenomena, regarded nature as the basic reason of human nature, and emphasized its influence on human history. After his death, the theory of man-land relationship has been developed in different countries.
F. Laczer, a German geographer, argued in his book Human Geography published in 1882 and 189 1 that human beings, as the product of the environment, are strictly restricted in their activities, development and distribution. Later, his students, American geographers E.C. semple and E.Huntington, emphasized the decisive role of geographical environment in human civilization, and their views had a wide impact, forming a systematic environmental determinism.
Almost at the same time, P. Vidal-Brandes, a French geographer, disagreed with the viewpoint of environmental determinism and put forward another viewpoint of man-land relationship, which was later called possibility theory or possibility theory. He believes that the special task of geography is to explain the spatial relationship between natural conditions and human conditions. The natural environment provides a certain range of possibilities, and human beings make use of this possibility according to their own needs, wishes and abilities when creating dwellings. His viewpoint was further developed in the book Principles of Anthropology published by his student J. Bruner in 19 10 (once translated into Human Geography). Bruner believes that nature is fixed and human nature is uncertain, and the relationship between them often changes with the times. The views of Vidal-brandeis and Bruner had a great influence on French geography, thus forming the French School.
Influenced by the French School, Professor P.M. Luo Shi Pei of the University of Liverpool in England coined the word "regulation" on 1930 and founded the "adaptation theory". In his view, regulation contains two meanings, namely, the restriction of natural environment on human activities and the possibility of human society using and utilizing the environment. Luo believes that human geography studies the two-way relationship between man and land, and mainly discusses the adaptability of human social activities to the environment.
The American geographer H.H. Barros published the article "Human Ecology" in 1923, and put forward the theory of ecological regulation. He advocates that human geography is the viewpoint of studying human ecology, and thinks that man is the central topic in the relationship between man and land, and other phenomena are only necessary to explain when they involve man and his reaction to man. He also believes that history studies human relations in time, while geography focuses on analyzing human relations in space.
Early 20th century
Books related to human geography
German scholar O. ruutel put forward the concept of cultural landscape, and thought that it was the main task of geography to explore the process of transforming original landscape into cultural landscape. Later, American geographer C.O. Sol proposed that human beings exert influence on natural and biological phenomena in the natural environment according to their own cultural standards, making them become cultural landscapes. At the same time, another American scholar, D.S. whittlesey, put forward the theory of "successive occupation", arguing that geography should not study the adaptation of human beings to the environment, but the historical process of human society occupying a place. They all emphasize the role of culture in the relationship between man and geographical environment, and form a cultural landscape theory about the relationship between man and land, which is actually a kind of "cultural determinism". It emphasizes that if residents in a region have any major changes in their attitudes, goals or technologies, they need to re-evaluate the significance of the natural resource base to them.
In the development of human geography, there is also the "dualism" of geography. Just as Humboldt advocates that geography should understand unity in complexity, Ritter believes that unity is the characteristic of geography. However, German O. Paicheur and others opposed Ritter's humanistic direction, thinking that geography can only be the study of the surface morphology of the earth, and human activities are not within its research scope. The dualism of geography comes from this. Dualism advocated by Paicheur has few real supporters in Western Europe.
Since 1930s, the geographical circles in the Soviet Union have criticized human geography, highlighting the development of economic geography, and actually replacing human geography with economic geography. At the same time, the Soviet Union regards physical geography and economic geography as two unrelated disciplines, on the grounds that the laws of the material world and human economic activities are completely different, and thinks that it is impossible for the two disciplines to merge into one discipline both logically and practically, and economic geography is a purely economic discipline, so the geographical viewpoint should be completely abandoned.
Until 1960, Anuchin. Anuchin criticized the dualism of dividing physical geography and economic geography in the Soviet Union since 1930s, and advocated that regional research should seek the connection and balance between physical geography and economic geography, which was warmly supported by many scholars such as Saushkin and Markov, and began to gradually emphasize the unity of Soviet geography (see History of Soviet Geography).
The formation of discipline system
With the development of the theory of human geography, the content and scope of research have been continuously expanded, and like physical geography, it has begun to differentiate, and some branches have emerged one after another, forming a disciplinary system of human geography. Ethnography, population geography, settlement geography, cultural geography, political geography, commercial geography, economic geography, industrial geography, agricultural geography, traffic geography, etc. , are formed and developed at this stage.
For a long time, many geography courses in European universities have been taught by historians. Many scholars emphasize that geography research, especially human geography research, is closely related to history, and the research of historical geography has long been limited to the content of historical human geography. Therefore, historical geography was once an important part of human geography. British scholar H.C. Darby and others began to study historical natural geography in 1930s, which made historical geography not only study the changes of human geographical phenomena in historical period, but also study the changes of natural geographical phenomena in historical period, thus becoming an independent branch of geography.
Modern stage
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Since the 1960s, due to the rapid development of social economy and science and technology, great changes have taken place in the theories, methods and research contents of human geography.
recent advance
From the past environmental determinism, possibility theory, adaptation theory to harmony theory. This is because since the 1950s, population expansion, industrial growth and urbanization have accelerated, and ecological balance destruction, environmental pollution, lack of resources and serious social problems have appeared in many parts of the world. The past theory of man-land relationship can no longer reflect the reality and guide the rational action of human beings.
human geography
Under the influence of the development of ecology and environmental science, human geographers advocate analyzing the relationship between man and environment with the theory of harmony. Since 1970s, analyzing and coordinating the relationship between man and environment has become a new topic in human geography.
1980 at the 24th international geography congress held in Tokyo at the end of August, Professor M.J. Wise from London University pointed out in his opening speech: "In today's world with increasing population, rapid environmental changes, lack of resources and frequent natural disasters, how to coordinate the relationship between the natural environment and human cultural life has become the main research task facing the international geography community."
reform
From 65438 to 0955, W.L. Garrison, a professor of geography at the University of Washington in the United States, set up a research class and trained a group of geographers by means of mathematical statistics. Among them, British scholars R.J. Jolly and P. hagt introduced quantitative methods into the geography departments of Cambridge University and Bristol University after 1960, which made this innovation spread rapidly among geographers in various countries, and the expression of geographical phenomenon distribution differences began to develop from qualitative to quantitative stage. The application of aerial survey technology and satellite remote sensing technology has greatly improved the level of geography in data collection and mapping, and also played an important role in promoting the development of human geography. The application of computer enables geographers to deal with the complicated calculation of various variables, study some spatial laws with new statistical methods and technical means, make accurate measurements, express the relationship between man and land in digital form, and explain regional differences and their changes.
use
human geography
System theory, founded in 1950s, quickly became the basic methodology of various disciplines. E.A. Ackerman, an American geographer, proposed in 1965 that geographers should explore a system concept consisting of many different but interdependent variables, and deal with people and the environment from the perspective of time and space. Since 1960s, many scholars have made contributions to the study of ecosystem, political system, economic system, social system and regional system.
With the introduction of quantitative calculation and system theory, geography began to use models to express the geographical phenomena it studied. T Herstrand, a Swedish geographer, explained the characteristics of the new wave with inductive model and predicted the diffusion probability of new things with stochastic model, which attracted wide attention. The Model of Geography (1967) and Interpretation of Geography (1969) co-authored by British scholars Jolly and hagt greatly promoted the use of models to explore practical problems in geography.
The emergence of the field
And the improvement of social, cultural and urban geographical status. After the rise of behavioral science in 1960s, the study of behavioral geography appeared. In 1970s, behavioral research was very popular in geography. By studying the reaction and behavior decision-making process of different social groups, strata and classes to different environments, geography can play a greater role in decision-making to solve practical problems.
With the vigorous development of tourism after World War II, the importance of tourism income to national economic income is increasing day by day, which makes tourism geography develop rapidly and become a new branch of human geography. Human beings exist in the form of various social groups, and the different culture of each group is not only a part of the social environment, but also a factor that restricts people's behavior. Therefore, since the Second World War, the importance of socio-cultural geography in studying social phenomena and cultural differences in space has been increasing. At the same time, the need to rebuild cities in many countries, the rapid increase of new cities and the continuous expansion of urban scale have accelerated the process of urbanization, brought about a series of urban problems such as housing, employment, transportation and environment, and gradually made urban geography occupy an important position in human geography.
Associated motion
human geography
Traditional human geography focuses on small area research, economic division and cultural landscape types, but turns to analyze and solve real social problems, involving land consolidation, environmental protection, poverty and hunger, racial discrimination, rational use of resources and improvement of people's lives. This directional change of human geography topics is the so-called related movement. The traditional study of human geography is to separate the combination of complex phenomena, so as to study each component of the whole complex environment separately, which leads to the stage of discipline differentiation. Since the mid-20th century, human geography has begun to face social problems, thus breaking the artificial boundaries of various branches of disciplines and emerging a new synthesis.
In addition, since the 1970s, there have been two propositions in human geography:
One is the school of human geography, which believes that the mechanical model of quantitative movement suppresses the subjectivity of researchers and research objects, puts forward people-centered geography, and is committed to observing social structures with special spatial concepts, studying their relationship with social life, and understanding the meaning and value of life.
One is the radical school of geography. Due to the economic recession in the United States after the 1960s, class and ethnic conflicts are prominent. Some geographers believe that the capitalist system should be attacked first and suggestions for revolutionary changes should be put forward. They founded the publication "The Opposite" to publicize their views and research results.
In addition, some scholars suggest that geography should be armed with Marxist historical materialism, put forward a new comprehensive direction, and oppose the tendency of discipline division and specialization.
Main branch disciplines:
After long-term development, human geography has formed a relatively complete discipline system. Generally, it can be divided into comprehensive theory, general theory (departmental human geography) and monograph (regional human geography). The comprehensive theory of human geography mainly refers to the study of the theory of man-land relationship. The general theory of human geography can be divided into three aspects: economy, politics and social culture, and some scholars divide it into two aspects: social culture and economy. The monograph of human geography includes the regional geography research of human elements in various regions.