Introduction to Geography

What is Geography?

          Geography is a combination of two Greek words, Geo and Graphein. Geo means the Earth and Grapheinmeans to write, to draw or to describe.

These two words together formed Geographia, which means to draw, to write about or describe the Earth. These meanings led to the development of the early definition of Geography which referred to description of the Earth by words, maps and statistics including both the physical earth and everything found on it such as plants, animals and people.

Therefore, Geography is the study of the distribution and interrelationship of phenomena in relation to earth surface.

Or

Geography is the study of the Earth and its environment.

BRANCHES OF GEOGRAPHY

There are three branches of Geography, namely:

1. Physical Geography, which is mainly concerned with land formation processes, weather and climate.
2. Human and Economic Geography, which involves the study of human activities on the Earth’s surface.
3. Practical Geography, which is concerned with field study, photography, map work and statistics.

IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING GEOGRAPHY

We study Geography in order to;

1. Raise our standard of living by utilizing properly the available resources.
2. Understand the social and geographical problems and how to solve them. For example soil erosion, climate problems etc.
3. Gain skills of observation, measuring, recording and interpreting of phenomena
4. Expand our knowledge of employment opportunities
5. Acquire skills for combating environmental problems such as drought, global warming etc.
6. Understand the interactions between our country and other countries and share ideas of solving problems.