For the musical group, see Geographer (band). For the 17th-century painting, see The Geographer.
The Geographer (1668-69), by Johannes Vermeer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" and the Greek suffix, "graphy", meaning "description", so a geographer is someone who studies the earth.[1] The word "geography" is a Middle French word that is believed to have been first used in 1540.[2]
Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography. Geographers do not study only the details of the natural environment or human society, but they also study the reciprocal relationship between these two. For example, they study how the natural environment contributes to human society and how human society affects the natural environment.[3]
In particular, physical geographers study the natural environment while human geographers study human society and culture. Some geographers are practitioners of GIS (geographic information system) and are often employed by local, state, and federal government agencies as well as in the private sector by environmental and engineering firms.[4]
The paintings by Johannes Vermeer titled The Geographer and The Astronomer are both thought to represent the growing influence and rise in prominence of scientific enquiry in Europe at the time of their painting in 1668–69.
^Arrowsmith, Aaron (1832). "Chapter II: The World". A Grammar of Modern Geography. King's College School. pp. 20–21. Archived from the original on 4 October 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
^"geography (n.)" (Web article). Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper. n.d. Archived from the original on 1 August 2017. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
^Pedley, Mary Sponberg; Edney, Matthew H., eds. (2020). The History of Cartography, Volume 4: Cartography in the European Enlightenment. University of Chicago Press. pp. 557–558. ISBN 9780226339221. Archived from the original on 4 October 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
^"Geographers : Occupational Outlook Handbook : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics". www.bls.gov. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human...
The Geographer (Dutch: De geograaf) is a painting created by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in 1668–1669, and is now in the collection of the Städel museum...
c. 170 AD) was an Alexandrian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three...
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography...
place names. Although many geographers are trained in toponymy and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the Earth's spatial...
map-making traditions of earlier cultures, particularly the Hellenistic geographers Ptolemy and Marinus of Tyre,: 193 combined with what explorers and merchants...
topics. The Association of American Geographers was founded in 1904 and was renamed the American Association of Geographers in 2016 to better reflect the increasingly...
Geography and climates of China China has great physical diversity. The eastern plains and southern coasts of the country consist of fertile lowlands and...
by geographers to explain history'. Its author, J. B. Mitchell, came down firmly on the side of geography: 'the historical geographer is a geographer first...
accents. The article was based on a 2012 paper published in Australian Geographer, and despite referencing the Australian Museum entry on drop bears in...
The Ravenna Cosmography (Latin: Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia, lit. "The Cosmography of the Unknown Ravennese") is a list of place-names covering the...
Australian Geographer (The Australian Geographer until 1975) is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Geographical Society of New...
on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The Office of the Geographer and Global Issues (INR/AN/GGI) produces intelligence analysis and assessments...
The Canadian Geographer (French: Le Géographe Canadien) is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal, published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Canadian...
between the environment and the economy (tying into a long history of geographers studying culture-environment interaction), and globalization. There are...
David W. Harvey FBA (born 31 October 1935) is a British Marxist economic geographer, podcaster, and Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography...
The Professional Geographer is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal publishing short articles on all aspects of geography. The journal is published...
geography that derives from a study of cities and urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists examine various aspects of urban life and the built environment...
different nations and cultures on Earth can be dated back to ancient geographers such as Ptolemy or Strabo, cultural geography as academic study firstly...
The following is a list of notable human geographers. Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), one of the founders of modern geography, he traveled extensively...
Phytogeography (from Greek φυτόν, phytón = "plant" and γεωγραφία, geographía = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch...
"géographie sociale") originates from France, where it was used both by geographer Élisée Reclus and by sociologists of the Le Play School, perhaps independently...
activities. This association found expression in the work of the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, who in 1897 in his book Politische Geographie, developed...
Maritime geography is a collection of terms used by naval military units to loosely define three maritime regions: brown water, green water, and blue water...
romanized: Hēródotos; c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now...
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