Essay, Research Paper: Five Themes Of Geography

In geography there was traditions. Later on a newer and better way of geography came along called the themes of geography. The traditions are as follows.1.The special tradition includes:the art of mapping or cartography, the importance of position and layout, including records of sailing distance, coastlines and landmarks.2.Area studies and tradition:Based on literary standards and an almost omnivorous appetite for information, self-conscious companionship with history.3.Man-Land Tradition:intellectual legacy is Hippocratic, a Greek Physician of 5th century B.C. who wrote On Airs, Waters and Places on effects of water, drinking and air on the health and character of man. Unfortunately, it got linked with Social Darwinism of the late 19th century, and so cultures were determined by where they were located.4.Earth Science Tradition:intellectual legacy: Aristotle, Greek philosophy who looked at natural processed Varenius, 17th century wrote Geographilia Generalis Physical geography, is this one. There are five major themes that characterize culture geography: culture, culture area, cultural landscape, cultural history, and cultural ecology. A cultural geographer studies the distribution of cultures and
























the elements of culture, such as artifacts and tools, techniques, attitudes, customs, languages, and religious beliefs; cultural complexes in their spatial organization; the cultural landscape such as, the association of human, biologic, and physical features on the surface of the Earth, ranging from the natural landscape unaffected by humankind to the landscape as thoroughly transformed by human action; the evolution and succession of cultures and cultural elements, including the history of cultural origins and their areal diffusion; and the complex interrelationships and areal associations of culture and nature. The American geographer Carl O. Sauer was particularly creative in working the concepts and teaching of anthropology, archaeology, and sociology into geography. The five themes served as a framework upon which the content of geography can be taught and served the K-12 population until the national geography standards were published in 1994. Since the six elements of the national standards embrace the five themes, they remain a valuable tool for students to use in developing a "geographic perspective," while the standards strengthen instructional planning.