Chapter-1

Nature and Scope

You have already studied Geography as a
Discipline in Chapter I of the book,
Fundamentals of Physical Geography (NCERT,
2006). Do you recall the contents? This chapter
has broadly covered and introduced you to the
nature of geography. You are also acquainted
with the important branches that sprout from
the body of geography. If you re-read the
chapter you will be able to recall the link of
human geography with the mother discipline
i.e. geography. As you know geography as a
field of study is integrative, empirical, and
practical. Thus, the reach of geography is
extensive and each and every event or
phenomenon which varies over space and time
can be studied geographically. How do you see
the earths surface? Do you realise that the earth
comprises two major components: nature
(physical environment) and life forms including
human beings? Make a list of physical and
human components of your surroundings.
Physical geography studies physical
environment and human geography studies
the relationship between the physical/natural
and the human worlds, the spatial distributions
of human phenomena and how they come
about, the social and economic differences
between different parts of the world.1
You are already aware of the fact that the
core concern of geography as a discipline is to
understand the earth as home of human beings
and to study all those elements which have
sustained them. Thus, emphasis is on study of
nature and human beings. You will realise that
geography got subjected to dualism and the
wide-ranging debates started whether
geography as a discipline should be a law
making/theorising (nomothetic) or
descriptive (idiographic). Whether its subject
matter should be organised and approach of
the study should be regional or systematic?
Whether geographical phenomena be
interpreted theoretically or through historic institutional
approach? These have been issues
for intellectual exercise but finally you will
appreciate that the dichotomy between physical
and human is not a very valid one because
nature and human are inseparable elements
and should be seen holistically. It is interesting
to note that both physical and human

phenomena are described in metaphors using

symbols from the human anatomy.
We often talk of the face of the earth, eye
of the storm, mouth of the river, snout (nose)
of the glacier, neck of the isthmus and profile
of the soil. Similarly regions, villages, towns
have been described as organisms. German
geographers describe the state/country as a
living organism. Networks of road, railways
and water ways have often been described as
arteries of circulation. Can you collect such
terms and expressions from your own
language? The basic questions now arises, can
we separate nature and human when they are
so intricately intertwined?

NATURE OF HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

Human geography studies the inter-relationship
between the physical environment and sociocultural
environment created by human beings
through mutual interaction with each other. You
have already studied the elements of physical
environment in class XI in the book entitled
Fundamentals of Physical Geography (NCERT
2006). You know that these elements are
landforms, soils, climate, water, natural vegetation
and diverse flora and fauna. Can you make a list
of elements which human beings have created
through their activities on the stage provided by
the physical environment? Houses, villages, cities,
road-rail networks, industries, farms, ports, items
of our daily use and all other elements of material
culture have been created by human beings
using the resources provided by the physical
environment. While physical environment has
been greatly modified by human beings, it has
also, in turn, impacted human lives.
Naturalisation of Humans and
Humanisation of Nature
Human beings interact with their physical
environment with the help of technology. It is
not important what human beings produce and
create but it is extremely important with the
help of what tools and techniques do they
produce and create.
Technology indicates the level of cultural
development of society. Human beings were
able to develop technology after they developed
better understanding of natural laws. For
example, the understanding of concepts of
friction and heat helped us discover fire.
Similarly, understanding of the secrets of DNA
and genetics enabled us to conquer many
diseases. We use the laws of aerodynamics to
develop faster planes. You can see that
knowledge about Nature is extremely important
to develop technology and technology loosens
the shackles of environment on human beings.
In the early stages of their interaction with their
natural environment humans were greatly
influenced by it. They adapted to the dictates
of Nature. This is so because the level of
technology was very low and the stage of
human social development was also primitive.
This type of interaction between primitive
human society and strong forces of nature was
termed as environmental determinism. At
that stage of very low technological development
we can imagine the presence of a naturalised
human, who listened to Nature, was afraid of
its fury and worshipped it.

The story in the box represents the direct

relationship of a household belonging to an
economically primitive society with nature. Read
about other primitive societies which live in
complete harmony with their natural
environment. You will realise that in all such cases
nature is a powerful force, worshipped, revered
and conserved. There is direct dependence of
human beings on nature for resources which
sustain them. The physical environment for such
societies becomes the Mother Nature.
The people begin to understand their
environment and the forces of nature with the
passage of time. With social and cultural
development, humans develop better and more
efficient technology. They move from a state of
necessity to a state of freedom. They create
possibilities with the resources obtained from
the environment. The human activities create
cultural landscape. The imprints of human
activities are created everywhere; health resorts
on highlands, huge urban sprawls, fields,
orchards and pastures in plains and rolling
hills, ports on the coasts, oceanic routes on the
oceanic surface and satellites in the space. The
earlier scholars termed this as possibilism.
Nature provides opportunities and human
being make use of these and slowly nature gets
humanised and starts bearing the imprints of
human endeavour.

Can you imagine what has made such a

life style possible? It is technology that has
allowed the people of Trondheim and others to
overcome the constraints imposed by nature. Do
you know about some other such instances?
Such examples are not difficult to find.
A geographer, Griffith Taylor introduced
another concept which reflects a middle path
(Madhyam Marg) between the two ideas of
environmental determinism and possibilism.
He termed it as Neodeterminism or stop and
go determinism. Those of you who live in cities
and those who have visited a city, might have
seen that traffic is regulated by lights on the
cross-roads. Red light means stop, amber light
provides a gap between red and green lights to
get set and green light means go. The concept
shows that neither is there a situation of
absolute necessity (environmental determinism)
nor is there a condition of absolute freedom
(possibilism). It means that human beings can
conquer nature by obeying it. They have to
respond to the red signals and can proceed in
their pursuits of development when nature
permits the modifications. It means that
possibilities can be created within the limits
which do not damage the environment and there
is no free run without accidents. The free run
which the developed economies attempted to
take has already resulted in the green house
effect, ozone layer depletion, global warming,
receding glaciers and degrading lands. The
neo-determinism conceptually attempts to
bring a balance nullifying the either or
dichotomy.
Human Geography through
the Corridors of Time
The process of adaptation, adjustment with and
modification of the environment started with the
appearance of human beings over the surface
of the earth in different ecological niches. Thus,
if we imagine the beginning of human
geography with the interaction of environment
and human beings, it has its roots deep in
history. Thus, the concerns of human
geography have a long temporal continuum
though the approaches to articulate them have
changed over time. This dynamism in
approaches and thrusts shows the vibrant
nature of the discipline. Earlier there was little
interaction between different societies and the
knowledge about each other was limited.
Travellers and explorers used to disseminate
information about the areas of their visits.
Navigational skills were not developed and
voyages were fraught with dangers. The late
fifteenth century witnessed attempts of
explorations in Europe and slowly the myths
and mysteries about countries and people
started to open up. The colonial period provided
impetus to further explorations in order to
access the resources of the regions and to obtain
inventorised information. The intention here is
not to present an in-depth historical account
but to make you aware of the processes of steady
development of human geography. The
summarised Table 1.1 will introduce you to the
broad stages and the thrust of human
geography as a sub-field of geography.

Fields and Sub-fields of Human Geography

Human geography, as you have seen, attempts
to explain the relationship between all elements
of human life and the space they occur over.
Thus, human geography assumes a highly
inter-disciplinary nature. It develops close

interface with other sister disciplines in social

sciences in order to understand and explain
human elements on the surface of the earth.
With the expansion of knowledge, new subfields
emerge and it has also happened to
human geography. Let us examine these fields
and sub-fields of Human Geography (Table 1.2).
You would have noticed that the list is
large and comprehensive. It reflects the
expanding realm of human geography. The
boundaries between sub-fields often overlap.
What follows in this book in the form of
chapters will provide you a fairly widespread
coverage of different aspects of human
geography. The exercises, the activities and the
case studies will provide you with some
empirical instances so as to have a better
understanding of its subject matter.

Chapter-2

Distribution, Density and

Growth
The people of a country are its real wealth. It
is they who make use of the countrys resources
and decide its policies. Ultimately a country is
known by its people.
It is important to know how many women
and men a country has, how many children are
born each year, how many people die and how?
Whether they live in cities or villages, can they
read or write and what work do they do? These
are what you will study about in this unit.
The world at the beginning of 21st century
recorded the presence of over 6 billion
population. We shall discuss the patterns of
their distribution and density here.
Why do people prefer to live in certain
regions and not in others?
The population of the world is unevenly
distributed. The remark of George B. Cressey
about the population of Asia that Asia has many
places where people are few and few place where
people are very many is true about the pattern
of population distribution of the world also.
PATTERNS OF POPULATION
DISTRIBUTION IN THE WORLD
Patterns of population distribution and density
help us to understand the demographic
characteristics of any area. The term population
distribution refers to the way people are spaced
over the earths surface. Broadly, 90 per cent of
the world population lives in about 10 per cent
of its land area.
The 10 most populous countries of the
world contribute about 60 per cent of the worlds
population. Of these 10 countries, 6 are located
in Asia. Identify these six countries of Asia.

DENSITY OF POPULATION
Each unit of land has limited capacity to
support people living on it. Hence, it is
necessary to understand the ratio between the
numbers of people to the size of land. This ratio
is the density of population. It is usually
measured in persons per sq km
Population
Density of Population =
Area
For example, area of Region X is 100 sq
km and the population is 1,50,000 persons.
The density of population is calculated as:
1,50,000
Density
100
=
= 1,500 person/sq km
What does this tell you about Region X?
Look at the map given below:
Do you observe that some areas are really
crowded? These are the densely populated
parts of the world with more than 200 persons
on every sq km. These are the North -Eastern
part of U.S.A., North-Western part of Europe,
South, South-East and East Asia.
Other areas like those near the North and
South Poles, the hot and the cold deserts and
high rainfall zones near the Equator have very
low density of population. These are the
sparsely populated regions of the world with
less than 01 person per sq km.
In between these two types are the areas
of medium density. There are 11 to 50 persons
per sq km in these areas. Western China,
Southern India in Asia, Norway, Sweden in
Europe are some examples. Look at the Fig. 2.2
and identify some other areas.
FACTORS INFLUENCING THE
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION
I. Geographical Factors
(i) Availability of water: It is the most
important factor for life. So, people prefer