Geographic Thought I: Greek, Roman, Arab, Chinese and Indian Scholars; Varenius, Kant, Humboldt, Ritter, Schaefer and Hartshorne; and the Impact of Darwinian Theory

Unit VIII is the history and philosophy of the discipline, and this platform gives it two chapters. This first one covers the scholars the document names: the contributions of Greek, Roman, Arab, Chinese and Indian scholars; the contributions of Bernhardus Varenius, Immanuel Kant, Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter and "Scheafer & Hartshorne"; and the impact of Darwinian theory on geographical thought. The document misspells the first of that last pair: it is Fred K. Schaefer, whose 1953 paper "Exceptionalism in Geography" attacked Richard Hartshorne's view of the discipline. The second chapter takes the traditions, dualisms, paradigms and perspectives that grew out of these debates.

1. Greek and Roman scholars

Greek geography developed two strands that still define the subject: a mathematical strand concerned with the shape and size of the Earth and its mapping, and a descriptive strand concerned with places and peoples. Homer's epics pictured a flat disc surrounded by the river Oceanus. Anaximander of Miletus is credited with the first world map, and Hecataeus wrote the Ges Periodos ("Journey round the Earth"), for which some call him the father of geography. Herodotus, the father of history, described the lands and peoples of the known world and speculated on the Nile floods. The Pythagoreans proposed a spherical Earth, and Aristotle gave evidence for it — the curved shadow on the Moon during a lunar eclipse — and divided it into torrid, temperate and frigid zones.

ScholarPeriodContribution
Eratosthenes3rd century BCE, AlexandriaCoined the word "geographia"; measured the Earth's circumference from the Sun's angle at Syene and Alexandria, obtaining about 250,000 stadia — remarkably close to the true value; often called the father of geography
Hipparchus2nd century BCEDivided the circle into 360 degrees and proposed a grid of latitude and longitude fixed by astronomical observation
Straboc. 64 BCE – 24 CEGeographica in 17 books: a descriptive, regional account of the Roman world, written by a Greek for administrators — the founder of the regional tradition
Claudius Ptolemyc. 150 CE, AlexandriaGeographike Hyphegesis (Guide to Geography): coordinates of about 8,000 places and methods of map projection — the peak of mathematical geography; his underestimate of the Earth's size later encouraged Columbus
Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela1st century CE, RomePliny's Naturalis Historia, an encyclopaedia of the natural world; Mela's De Chorographia, the earliest surviving Latin geography
🧠 Strabo describes, Ptolemy measures
The two giants of classical geography stand for the two strands. Strabo's Geographica is the ancestor of regional (chorographic) description; Ptolemy's Guide to Geography is the ancestor of mathematical geography and cartography. When the Renaissance rediscovered Ptolemy, it was his coordinates and projections that transformed European map-making.

2. Arab, Chinese and Indian scholars

While Europe's learning stagnated in the early Middle Ages, Arab scholars preserved and extended the Greek legacy, driven by trade, pilgrimage and administration. Al-Khwarizmi revised Ptolemy's coordinates in Kitab Surat al-Ard (9th century). Al-Masudi (10th century), the "Herodotus of the Arabs", travelled widely and wrote Meadows of Gold. Al-Biruni (973–1048) measured the Earth's radius by an ingenious method using the dip of the horizon from a mountain and wrote Kitab al-Hind (about 1030), a study of Indian society, science and geography. Al-Idrisi made the world map known as the Tabula Rogeriana (1154) for King Roger II of Sicily. Ibn Battuta travelled some 120,000 km across Africa and Asia, including India, and recorded it in his Rihla. Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah (1377) related the character of societies to their environment and set out a cyclical theory of the rise and fall of dynasties built on group solidarity (asabiyya).

Chinese geography began with the Yu Gong ("Tribute of Yu"), a chapter of the Shujing that describes nine provinces with their soils, products and tribute — among the earliest regional geographies. Pei Xiu (3rd century CE) set out six principles of cartography: graduated divisions (scale), a rectangular grid, pacing out the sides of triangles, measuring high and low, measuring right and acute angles, and measuring curves and straight lines. Zhang Heng built a seismoscope in 132 CE; the Buddhist pilgrims Faxian and Xuanzang (7th century) left detailed accounts of India; Shen Kuo (11th century) described magnetic declination and the formation of landforms by erosion and deposition; and Zheng He led seven great voyages across the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433. Indian scholarship combined Puranic cosmography — Jambudvipa and the seven concentric continents, with Bharatavarsha at the centre — with exact astronomy. Aryabhata (Aryabhatiya, 499 CE) taught that the Earth rotates on its axis and explained eclipses correctly; Varahamihira's Brihat Samhita (6th century) discussed weather, rainfall forecasting and the finding of groundwater; and Kautilya's Arthashastra describes land classification and the measurement of rainfall with a gauge.

3. Varenius, Kant, Humboldt, Ritter, Schaefer and Hartshorne

Bernhardus Varenius (1622–1650), in Geographia Generalis (1650), drew the first explicit distinction in modern geography, between general (systematic) geography, which studies the Earth as a whole and states laws, and special (regional) geography, which describes particular countries. General geography he divided into absolute (the Earth itself), relative (its relations to the heavens) and comparative parts; Newton edited the book for his Cambridge students. Immanuel Kant lectured on physical geography at Königsberg for four decades (1756–1796), and his classification of knowledge gave geography its philosophical place: sciences can be classified logically, by the things they study, or physically, by time and space — history describes things that follow one another in time (it is chronological) and geography things that lie beside one another in space (it is chorological).

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Carl Ritter (1779–1859) founded modern geography, and both died in 1859. Humboldt, a naturalist and explorer, travelled through Spanish America with Aimé Bonpland (1799–1804), climbed Chimborazo, drew the first isotherms (1817), showed the altitudinal zonation of vegetation and summed up his vision of the unity of nature in Kosmos (five volumes, 1845–62). His method was empirical, systematic and inductive — the ancestor of systematic physical geography. Ritter, a professor at Berlin, wrote the vast Die Erdkunde (19 volumes, 1817–59). His geography was regional, comparative, anthropocentric and teleological: the Earth was designed by God as the home of humanity, and each region was a whole to be understood in relation to its people. Humboldt is the father of systematic geography, Ritter of regional geography.

Kant's chorological idea was revived by Alfred Hettner and brought to the English-speaking world by Richard Hartshorne in The Nature of Geography (1939): geography is the study of areal differentiation, the variable character of the Earth's surface; it integrates phenomena in particular places and is essentially idiographic, concerned with the unique rather than with general laws. In 1953 Fred K. Schaefer (the syllabus spells him "Scheafer") published "Exceptionalism in Geography: A Methodological Examination" in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. He attacked the Kant–Hettner–Hartshorne position as "exceptionalism" — the claim that geography is a unique discipline exempt from the scientific search for laws — and argued that geography should be a nomothetic, law-seeking science of spatial arrangements. Schaefer died before the paper appeared; Hartshorne replied in 1955 and in Perspective on the Nature of Geography (1959). The exchange opened the way for the quantitative revolution and spatial science of the late 1950s and 1960s.

4. The impact of Darwinian theory on geographical thought

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) — published in the year Humboldt and Ritter died — reshaped geography in four ways. It replaced Ritter's teleology with a naturalistic account of change; it supplied the idea of evolution through stages, visible in Davis's geographical cycle of youth, maturity and old age; it encouraged an ecological view of organisms, including people, adjusting to their environment; and, through the idea of a struggle for existence, it fed social Darwinism. The most direct result was environmental determinism, often mixed with the neo-Lamarckian belief that characteristics acquired in response to the environment are inherited. Friedrich Ratzel (Anthropogeographie, 1882–91) treated the state as an organism needing Lebensraum (living space); his American follower Ellen Churchill Semple (Influences of Geographic Environment, 1911) opened with "Man is a product of the earth's surface"; and Ellsworth Huntington (Civilization and Climate, 1915) tied civilisation to a stimulating climate.

SchoolKey figuresPosition
Environmental determinismRatzel, Semple, HuntingtonThe natural environment controls human activity and culture
PossibilismPaul Vidal de la Blache (genre de vie), Jean Brunhes; the term coined by Lucien Febvre"There are no necessities, but everywhere possibilities" (Febvre, 1922): people choose among the options nature offers
Neo-determinism (stop-and-go determinism)Griffith TaylorLike traffic lights, nature sets the pace and direction of development; people can speed up, slow down or stop but cannot change the direction
ProbabilismO.H.K. SpateThe environment makes some responses more probable than others, without determining them

Key takeaways

  • Greeks: Anaximander's map, Herodotus's descriptions, Aristotle's spherical Earth and zones, Eratosthenes's name and circumference, Hipparchus's grid, Strabo's regional Geographica and Ptolemy's mathematical Guide to Geography.
  • Arabs: al-Khwarizmi, al-Masudi, al-Biruni (Kitab al-Hind), al-Idrisi (Tabula Rogeriana, 1154), Ibn Battuta and Ibn Khaldun (Muqaddimah, 1377); Chinese: the Yu Gong, Pei Xiu's six principles, Xuanzang, Shen Kuo, Zheng He; Indians: Aryabhata, Varahamihira, the Arthashastra.
  • Varenius (1650): general versus special geography; Kant: geography is chorological as history is chronological; Humboldt (Kosmos, isotherms) founded systematic and Ritter (Die Erdkunde, teleological) regional geography — both died in 1859.
  • Hartshorne (1939): areal differentiation, idiographic; Schaefer (1953, the document's "Scheafer"): exceptionalism attacked, geography as a nomothetic science of spatial arrangement — the prelude to the quantitative revolution.
  • Darwin (1859) brought evolution, ecology and social Darwinism into geography; determinism (Ratzel, Semple, Huntington), possibilism (Vidal, Febvre), neo-determinism (Griffith Taylor) and probabilism (Spate) followed.

Practice questions (12)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

  1. The scholar who coined the term "geography" and estimated the circumference of the Earth from the Sun's angle at Syene and Alexandria was:

    1. Eratosthenes
    2. Ptolemy
    3. Herodotus
    4. Strabo
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Eratosthenes

    Eratosthenes, librarian at Alexandria in the third century BCE, coined "geographia" and used the difference in the noon Sun's angle between Syene and Alexandria to obtain a strikingly good estimate of the Earth's circumference.

  2. Ptolemy's Geographike Hyphegesis is most important in the history of geography for:

    1. The first theory of environmental determinism
    2. Coordinates of thousands of places and methods of map projection
    3. A descriptive regional account of the Roman world in 17 books
    4. A cyclical theory of the rise and fall of dynasties
    Show answer

    Answer: B — Coordinates of thousands of places and methods of map projection

    Ptolemy's Guide to Geography (c. 150 CE) listed about 8,000 places by latitude and longitude and explained projections — the summit of mathematical geography. The 17-book regional account is Strabo's, and the dynastic cycle is Ibn Khaldun's.

  3. Kitab al-Hind, a detailed study of Indian society, science and geography written around 1030, is the work of:

    1. Al-Masudi
    2. Al-Idrisi
    3. Ibn Battuta
    4. Al-Biruni
    Show answer

    Answer: D — Al-Biruni

    Al-Biruni accompanied Mahmud of Ghazni's campaigns and learned Sanskrit to write Kitab al-Hind; he also measured the Earth's radius. Ibn Battuta wrote the Rihla, al-Idrisi made the Tabula Rogeriana and al-Masudi wrote Meadows of Gold.

  4. The Muqaddimah (1377), which related the character of societies to their environment and proposed a cyclical theory of dynasties based on group solidarity, was written by:

    1. Ibn Khaldun
    2. Ibn Hawqal
    3. Al-Khwarizmi
    4. Yaqut al-Hamawi
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Ibn Khaldun

    Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah (the introduction to his universal history) developed the concept of asabiyya and linked climate and way of life to social character. Al-Khwarizmi revised Ptolemy, and Yaqut compiled a geographical dictionary.

  5. The "six principles of cartography", including graduated divisions for scale and a rectangular grid, were set out in the third century CE by the Chinese scholar:

    1. Zhang Heng
    2. Zheng He
    3. Pei Xiu
    4. Shen Kuo
    Show answer

    Answer: C — Pei Xiu

    Pei Xiu's six principles made Chinese mapping systematic centuries before comparable European rules. Zhang Heng built a seismoscope, Shen Kuo described magnetic declination, and Zheng He led the Ming voyages.

  6. Bernhardus Varenius, in Geographia Generalis (1650), divided geography into:

    1. Chronological and chorological geography
    2. Idiographic and nomothetic geography
    3. General (systematic) and special (regional) geography
    4. Physical and human geography
    Show answer

    Answer: C — General (systematic) and special (regional) geography

    Varenius distinguished general geography, which states laws about the Earth as a whole, from special geography, which describes particular regions — the first form of the systematic–regional dualism. The chronological–chorological contrast is Kant's.

  7. Immanuel Kant held that geography differs from history in that geography is:

    1. Nomothetic — it discovers universal laws
    2. Teleological — it reveals a divine plan
    3. Chronological — it describes events in time
    4. Chorological — it describes things that exist side by side in space
    Show answer

    Answer: D — Chorological — it describes things that exist side by side in space

    Kant classified sciences physically by time and space: history is chronological, geography chorological. The teleological view is Ritter's, and the nomothetic claim is Schaefer's.

  8. Which of the following are contributions of Alexander von Humboldt? Select all that apply.

    1. Kosmos, a multi-volume account of the unity of nature
    2. The first map of isotherms
    3. A teleological view of the Earth as the divinely designed home of humanity
    4. Die Erdkunde in 19 volumes
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Kosmos, a multi-volume account of the unity of nature; B — The first map of isotherms

    Humboldt wrote Kosmos (1845–62) and drew the first isotherms (1817). Die Erdkunde and the teleological, God-designed Earth belong to Carl Ritter, his contemporary at Berlin.

  9. Fred K. Schaefer's paper "Exceptionalism in Geography" (1953), whose author the syllabus spells "Scheafer", argued that:

    1. Geography should abandon maps in favour of literary description
    2. Geography should be a law-seeking science of spatial arrangements, not an exceptional idiographic discipline
    3. The natural environment determines human culture
    4. Geography is the study of areal differentiation and unique regions
    Show answer

    Answer: B — Geography should be a law-seeking science of spatial arrangements, not an exceptional idiographic discipline

    Schaefer attacked the Kant–Hettner–Hartshorne "exceptionalism" and called for nomothetic geography; areal differentiation is Hartshorne's definition, which Schaefer criticised. The debate prepared the quantitative revolution.

  10. Assertion (A): Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter both died in 1859. Reason (R): 1859 is also the year in which Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published. Choose the correct option.

    1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
    2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
    3. A is true, but R is false
    4. A is false, but R is true
    Show answer

    Answer: B — Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

    Both statements are true, and the coincidence is often used to mark the end of the classical period of modern geography and the beginning of Darwinian influence — but one fact does not explain the other.

  11. "There are no necessities, but everywhere possibilities" is the classic statement of possibilism by:

    1. Lucien Febvre
    2. Griffith Taylor
    3. Ellen Churchill Semple
    4. Ellsworth Huntington
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Lucien Febvre

    Febvre, the historian of the Annales school, coined "possibilism" for the ideas of Vidal de la Blache in A Geographical Introduction to History (1922). Semple and Huntington were determinists, and Griffith Taylor proposed stop-and-go determinism.

  12. Griffith Taylor's "stop-and-go determinism" compares the role of nature in human development to:

    1. A menu of possibilities from which people choose freely
    2. Traffic lights, which set the direction while people control the pace
    3. A cycle of youth, maturity and old age
    4. An organism that needs living space to grow
    Show answer

    Answer: B — Traffic lights, which set the direction while people control the pace

    Taylor's neo-determinism likened nature to a traffic controller: people may go faster, slower or stop, but the broad direction is set by the environment. A menu of choices is possibilism; the organism needing Lebensraum is Ratzel's state.