Definitions of Human Geography : Human geography has been defined by various scholars.
Following are the major definitions given by prominent scholars :
1. According to Ratzel, “Human geography is the synthetical study of the relationships between the human societies and the earth’s surface.”
2. According to Ellen C Semple, “Human geography is the study of the changing relationship between the unresting man and the unstable earth. ” Interpretation of the changing relationship between the unresting man and the unstable earth has been done in the definition of human geography provided by Sempel. In this definition, the changing relationships is the major group of words.
3. According to Paul Vidal de La Blache, “Human geography presents the conception resulting from a more synthesised knowledge of the physical laws governing our earth and of the relations between the living beings which inhabit it.” This definition of human geography presented by Blache provides a unique theory of the interrelationships between the earth and the humans.
4. According to Albert Demanzia, “Human geography is the study of relationships between the human groups and societies and the natural environment.”
5. According to Living stone and Rogers, “Human geography studies the relations between physical/natural and humane world, regional distribution of human incidents and the reasons of their occurrence and social and economic diversities found in various part of the world.”
Nature of Human Geography: The major basis of the nature of human geography is centered upon the natural interrelationships of the physical environment and the man – made. Socio-economic, cultural environment. Through his activities, man made large’-scale changes in the physical environment and created various types of cultural environment.
Houses, villages, towns, roads and railways network, industries, fields, ports, items of daily needs and all the other elements of physical culture are a part of the cultural landscape itself. In fact, along with physical environment, human activities are also effected by the cultural landscape or the cultural environment created by mankind.
Subject Matter of Human Geography: The study of all the efforts made by man, right from the human’s cooperation with his natural environment in order to perform activities related to earning livelihood to the efforts made for the fulfillment of his greatest requirements are included in the subject matter of human geography.
Therefore, all such landscapes which have been created by human activities, are included in the subject matter of human geography. In order to understand and interpret the human elements present on the earth, the assistory subjects of social sciences of geography are also studied.
