Geography Section 1.2
An economic geographer would be employed by
a manufacturing company. Economic geographers use economics to help them understand how the locations of resources affect the ways people make, transport, and use goods and how and where services are provided. In manufacturing, they would help choose desirable locations for the company where there are plenty of resources and good transportation routes. They would also look at the new developments in communications and transportation that would help the company make the movement of information and goods even faster.
The study of other disciplines help geographers in their work as countries become interdependent
in many ways. For example, in studying economics, geographers can see how new developments in communications and transportation make the movement of information and goods more efficient. With all this fast communication and transportation, a business can easily operate globally without having to depend on any one specific place to fill all of its needs.
If an economic geographer didn't interview citizens when preparing a city transportation plan, then the plan
wouldn't please the people at all. See, it is important that geographers interview the people so they can get their opinion on subjects so that way they can adjust plans like this to their need. That way, the transportation companies will be much more profitable and the people much happier.
Human Geography
- (Also called cultural geography). This is the study of human activities and their relationship to the cultural and physical environments. It concentrates on political, economic, and cultural factors, like population and ethnicity.
Geography Methods
- Geographers use many research methods when doing their work, depending on the type of work they are doing. These methods include direct observation, mapping, interviewing, utilizing technology, and statistics. These methods are essential to a geographer's work.
Jobs in Geography
- Jobs in geography are very common and very essential in many different work forces. There are more jobs in geography then one might think because they are used in unexpected ways like in real estate and travel agents.
Geographic Branches
- Since geography covers such a wide variety of topics, they divide their subject area into two main branches: physical geography, the study of the earth's physical features, and human geography, the study of human activities and their relationship to the cultural and physical environments. From there, these branches are divided into even smaller branch subdivisions like meteorology, the study of weather and weather forecasting, and historical geography, the study of places and human activities over time.
Geographic Information System (GIS)
- These are computer tools that process and organize data and satellite images with other pieces of information gathered by geographers and other scientists. This technology helps people determine where to build roads, stores, and parks. This technology has also revolutionized mapmaking for cartographers.
Meteorology
- This is one of the smaller sub divisions in the branch of physical geography. It is the study of weather and weather forecasting.
Cartography
- This is the study and making of maps that geographic specialists called cartographers do. They select complicated pieces of information about an area and present them in a more understandable form on a map. This way they can more easily show and compare information about areas.
Other Disciples
Geographers have to use other disciples also in order to analyze the patterns and relationships in geography. Some subjects they might study include history, government, sociology, and economics. In studying these, they can see how each of these subjects affects and is affected by geography.
Physical Geography
This is one of the main branches of geography. It focuses on the study of the earth's physical features. It looks at things like climate, land, water, pants, and animal life in terms of relationships to one another and humans.