What is Geography?

Geographers study place and space, and how people interact with one another and with the environment. Many questions geographers focus on are related to thinking about why places are the way they are. Geography is divided into two main branches, human and physical.

Human geographers study why people are located in a particular place, and the paths and enabling and constraining factors that brought them there. Human geographers also study the relationships between people and their environment. Human geography is concerned with the spatial aspects of human existence - how people and their activity are distributed in space, how they use and perceive space, and how they create and sustain the places that make up the earth's surface. This field includes a number of subfields, such as urban geography, economic geography, political geography and political ecology.

Physical geographers study the natural processes that formed the distinct landscapes of particular places. Physical geography is the study of the landforms on earth and the forces that shape them. Physical geographers study patterns of climates, land forms, vegetation, soils, and water. They forecast the weather, manage land and water resources, and analyze the flora and fauna of a wide range of ecosystems, such as forests, rangelands, and wetlands.