Human Geography

Human Geography covers a range of topics focusing on human activities and their interactions with the environment:

(i) Social/Cultural Geography: This area examines society and its spatial dynamics, as well as the cultural elements contributed by society.

(ii) Population and Settlement Geography: Population and Settlement Geography studies population growth, distribution, density, sex ratio, migration, occupational structure, and other demographic factors. Settlement geography explores the characteristics of rural and urban settlements.

(iii) Economic Geography: Economic Geography investigates the economic activities of people, including agriculture, industry, tourism, trade, transportation, infrastructure, and services.

(iv) Historical Geography: Historical Geography examines the historical processes through which space is organized. It explores the historical experiences of different regions and how geographical features change over time.

(v) Political Geography: Political Geography focuses on political events and structures. It studies boundaries, spatial relations between neighboring political units, delimitation of constituencies, election scenarios, and develops theoretical frameworks to understand political behavior.

Class 11 Geography: Branches of Geography (Based on Systematic Approach): The two major approaches to studying geography are the systematic and regional approaches. The systematic approach, pioneered by Alexander Von Humboldt, involves studying phenomena worldwide and identifying typologies or spatial patterns. On the other hand, the regional approach, developed by Karl Ritter, divides the world into regions at different hierarchical levels and studies all geographical phenomena within a particular region.

Dualism is a characteristic of geography, reflecting the emphasis placed on either physical or human geography. While early scholars focused on physical geography, it became apparent that humans are an integral part of the Earth’s surface and have contributed significantly through cultural development. Thus, human geography emerged, emphasizing human activities alongside the study of nature.

In this article, we will delve deep into the topic of “Branches of Geography (Based on Systematic Approach)” from the NCERT Class 12 Geography Book. These notes are specially curated by an expert team at w3wiki for all the students.