Historical Geography

Historical geography
GEOGRAPHERS seek to understand the world by examining spatial relationships. The types of
questions they might ask are: Why are things located where they are? How are places different from each
other? How are places like each other? How are places interconnected with each other? How do people affect
their natural environment and how does the natural environment affect people? In many instances, the
answers to these questions are related directly to what the world is like today.
For historical geographers, these questions are adapted to consider the role of time. For example,
a historical geographer might ask questions such as: How did people, things, and landscape elements come
to be located where they are? How did a place come to be like other places? How did it develop differently
from other places? How have people been affected by the natural environment? How have they altered the
environment as well? In short, historical geography might be described as the study of past places.
Some of the earliest attempts at what might be considered historical geography are rooted in
ancient GREECE. Although typically identified as a historian, Herodotus has often been regarded by
geographers as one of their own. Based upon his own extensive travels and keen observations, Herodotus
developed a sophisticated understanding of how the processes of physical geography played out over
extended periods of time, resulting in what was his contemporary landscape.
While individual travel and exploration aided in the development of the historical geographies of Herodotus,
the expansion of Islam further developed the field of historical geography. By the mid-8th century C.E.,
religious conquests had brought northern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic control. What
transpired was an exchange of ideas between East and West. At the same time, Muslim concepts such as
the use of the decimal system made their way into Europe, and Greek and Roman texts were translated into
Arabic for the first time. Like the Greeks, Muslim scholars such as Al-Biruni incorporated the role of time
within the processes of physical geography. In his study of India, Al-Biruni attempted to explain the formation
and distribution of alluvial deposits, predating the development of similar ideas in Europe by centuries.
Considered perhaps the most significant historical geographer of the medieval Muslim world, Ibn-Khaldun
has been cited as the first to explicitly link the physical environment to human activity and culture through
time—thereby establishing the human-environment connection so crucial to the broader field of geography
as well.
Nineteenth-century European historical geographers continued to study the relationship between

humans and the natural environment with respect to time, but were furthered in their research by theoretical
developments in the biological and social sciences. In 1859, Charles Darwin introduced the notion of natural
descent in his historic volume, The Origin of Species. Drawing in part upon Thomas Malthus’s ideas
concerning population growth and the limitations of the natural environment, Darwin concluded that
environments were capable of supporting a limited number of organisms and only those organisms best
biologically suited to an environment would be able to remain in that environment and successfully
reproduce. Those less well suited to the environment would ultimately face extinction because of competition
from better adapted organisms.
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY TODAY

While the basic idea of historical geography as the study of past places remains today, the scale
of those places and spatial relationships has grown considerably in more recent decades. One of the major
areas of interest in historical geography today examines the process of globalization. Globalization describes
how different places in the world are becoming more and more interconnected with each other every day.
Many historical geographers are now interested in the history of geopolitics and the changes in world
economies. By examining these systems at the largest scale possible, the global scale, historical
geographers seek not only to understand how politics and economics impacted societies around the world
in the past, but also to predict what new alliances and conflicts may arise in our future.
Migration studies are still vital to understanding the historical processes of globalization. In some
instances, historical geographers examine migration patterns with the goal of trying to understand how
countries such as the United States expanded as well as how its settlers learned to adapt to new
environmental challenges. While these historical geographers may focus on the progress of settlers and
new nations, others may examine the issue of migration from the standpoint of the pre-existing, or
indigenous, population. Migration and settlement do not occur in empty space, but rather, in the case
of colonialism, they affect the people who were already living in those places for centuries beforehand.
By understanding the changes that occurred with the development of colonialism centuries ago,
historical geographers can hope to better explain the often difficult conflicts that emerge with the collapse
of colonial empires in the 20th century.
This re-examination of colonialism from the perspective of native populations has also drawn
attention to other groups whose stories have often been left untold. One area of historical geography that
has grown substantially in more recent decades is one that focuses on feminist historical geography.
Throughout history, women and men have often held different amounts of political, economic, and social
power. Feminist historical geographers attempt to shed light on how these inequalities affected the way
that women experienced historic events and places in dramatically different ways from men.
Modern technology has certainly aided in the practice of historical geography in more recent
decades. With the development of cheaper and faster computing systems and the Internet, access to
historic geographic data has grown substantially. Now, with only the click of a computer mouse, historical
geographers can locate data sources on the Internet once available only on paper in archives. This turn to
the digital world has also been reflected in the increasing use of geographic information systems (GIS) in
historical geography. GIS often serves as a means for efficiently storing, retrieving, and analysing historical
spatial data that would have previously occupied thousands of printed volumes and taken thousands of
hours to examine individually by hand. Understanding the past has certainly been aided by present
technology.
Despite the centuries that have elapsed since the chronicles of Herodotus and Ibn-Khaldun, their
work nonetheless still reflects ideas common to that of more contemporary geographers, even those using
GIS. The goal of historical geography is not simply to provide a single snapshot image of past places, but
rather, like these historic scholars, to come to understand how places of the past are related to those of
today. Historical geography does not try to discover ultimate causes or a single origin; rather, it recognizes
that geographical relationships occur within a continuum of time—past, present, and future. Historical
geographers attempt to reconstruct past places in the interest of understanding contemporary places and
their potential impacts upon future ones.

Historical Geography

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Historical geography

Nineteenth-century European historical geographers continued to study the relationship between

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY TODAY

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