Surigao del Sur State University

Rosario, Tandag City

Jerome S. Alvarez Prof. Aida Osorio, MSLS

MST-SS
Historical Development of Geography

Herodotus (485-425 BC) made marvelous topographical descriptions

Eratosthenes (3rd century BC) accepted the concept that the earth is round and calculated its circumference to
within 0.5 percent accuracy. He described the known areas of the world and divided the earth into five climatic
regions. He also prepared one of the earliest maps of the known world

Hipparchus (4th century BC) was a great astronomer of the ancient world. He drew imaginary lines on the
earth surface to describe the location of places, thus developing of the concept of the meridians and parallels.

Thales of Melitus (6th century BC) applied geometric principles to the measurement of land areas

Anaximander argued that the world was shaped like a cylinder. He made of the world based on the
information from sailors of Miletus.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was the first to demonstrate that the earth was a sphere. He observed that all matter
tended to fall together towards a common center, that during the eclipse, the earths shadow on the moon was
a circular and that the configuration of stars changed as one travelled to the north or south.

Ptolemy (AD 100-170) wrote an eight volume Guide to geography. He prepared a number of maps whose
quality was unsurpassed for more than a thousand years.

Ptolemy marked the end of progress in the development of geographic concepts in the ancient world. In the
fifth century, the word geography almost disappeared from the european vocabulary. But during the middle
ages, geographic inquiry continued outside Europe.

Edrisi (1099-1154), Ibn Batuta (1304-1378), Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) collected accurate information about
the location of coastlines, rivers, and mountains ranges in areas conquered by Muslims.

Phei Hsiu, known as the father of Chinese cartography, produced an elaborate map of China in Ad 267.

17th Century Geographer

1. Bernhard Varenius (1622-1650), a german, wrote Geographica Generalis. His books served as a
standard treatise on systematic geography for more than a century. He recognized the duality of
Physical and Human Geography

2. Immanuel Kant (1724-1784) was the german philosopher who provided the philosophical
underpinnings of geography. He justified its place among sciences.

3. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) and Carl Ritter (1779-1859) were both German geographers.
They championed empiricism and inductive explanation through field observation. This means that
geography should use scientific methods to explain the reasons for the presence or the absence of
certain phenomena. This stated the where and why approach in geography.

4. Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) and Ellen Churchill Semple (1863-1932) believed that geography was
the study of the influencees of the natural environment on people. Ratzel was widely recognized as the
founder of Human Geography. His important publications is Anthropogeography.

5. Ellsworth Huntington (1876-1974) an early american geographer, argued that climate was a majr
determine of civilization.

6. Paul Vidal de la Blache (1848-1918) and Jean Brunhes (1869-1930) used the same orientation as
that of Humboldt and Ritter. They developed what is known as the regional geography approach,
sometimes called the cultural landscape approach.

7. Carl Saver (1889-1997) and Robert Platt (1880-1950), both american geographers, adopted the
regional geography approach developed by Blache and Brunhes