Chapter One

Course: Economic Geography
Introduction:
Main concepts and definitions
Chapter # 1
Main concepts
and
definitions
1. Contents
What is geography?
Five unifying themes in geography
Elements of geography
Branches of geography
What is economic geography?
Classification of economic activities
Scope and goals of economic geography
Poverty as one of the spatial variables
2. Geography
Greek roots:
 Geo means ‘earth’
 Graphos means ‘description’
However many disciplines ‘describe the

earth’: geology, botany, zoology,
meteorology, etc.
Geographers study the earth from a spatial
perspective.
3. The study of spatial variation on the
earth’s surface.
‘There would be no geography if physical

and human phenomena were distributed
uniformly over the face of the earth’
Harthshorn, 2000:4
The geographer is concerned primarily with

variations from place to place, as opposed
to historians’ focus on variations from time
to time.
4. The Five Unifying Themes in
Geography
There are five themes in geography:

 Location
 Place
 Region
 Human environment relations
 Movement
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5. Location (where is it?)
 Absolute (or mathematical) location describes an exact

position or point on the earth’s surface as defined by a set
of mapped coordinates obtained from a superimposed
grid or measurement system. The use of latitude and
longitude, e.g.: Dhaka - latitude 23° 43' 23N , longitude
90° 24' 31E
 Relative location refers to the relational characteristics of
a location as described in generalized terms or with
respect to other areas or reference points on the earth.
Measuring: N, S, E and W; km/ml; in Asia, etc
2
6. Place
(What makes a place different from other places?)
Differences might be defined in terms of climate,

physical features, or the people who live there and their
traditions.
Places have both human and physical characteristics:
 Physical characteristics include mountains, rivers, soil,
beaches, wildlife, soil.
 Human characteristics are derived from the ideas and actions
of people that result in changes to the environment, such as
buildings, roads, clothing, and food habits.
3
7. Regions
Regions can be defined by a number of characteristics including area,
language, political divisions, religions, and nature.
There are three basic types of regions.
Formal regions are those defined by governmental or
administrative boundaries (i. e., United States,
Birmingham, Brazil). These regional boundaries are not
open to dispute.
Functional regions are those defined by a function (e.g.
free trade zones, EPZ, Biman Airlines Service area or a
newspaper service area). If the function ceases to exist,
the region would no longer exist either.
Vernacular regions are those loosely defined by
people's perception (i. e., The South, The Middle East).
4
8. Human-environment interaction
What are the relationships among people and places?
Humans adapt to the environment (hunting,

horticulture)
Humans modify the environment
Humans depend on the environment (rain in deserts,
sunny days in cold regions)
(When humans modify their environment through

economic activities, such as deforestation and expansion
of irrigated areas, it can cause nature degradations such
as soil erosion and floods or desertification in dry areas)
5
9. Movement - What are the patterns of
movement of people, products, and information?
A study of movement includes learning

about major modes of transportation used
by people, an area's major exports and
imports, and ways in which people
communicate (move ideas).
Global village
10. Elements of Geography
Any phenomenon whose distribution differs from
place to place is termed a spatial variable and
qualifies as an element of geography.
There are many phenomena that can be a focus of
geographers, e.g. natural resources, humans, political
systems, economic activities, travel patterns, etc.
These elements determine the type of geography in
focus.
Geography broadly is divided into physical
geography and cultural geography.
11. Physical Geography
Physical geography includes the following

fields: geomorphology (through geology),
climatology (including meteorology),
biogeography (distribution of plants and
animals, uses biology), soils geography,
hydrography, oceanography, and
cartography.
12. Cultural geography
Also called human geography, involves all
phases of human social life in relation to the
physical earth.
It includes economic geography, political
geography (application of political
sciences), military geography,
ethnography, historical geography,
urban geography, demography, linguistic
geography, travel geography, etc.
13. Economic geography
Refers to the field of study focused on the
location of economic activity at the local,
national and world scale
(see Hartshorn ed. 2000:1-6)
In other words, it is the study of the spatial
variation of economic activities on the
earth’s surface.
What is economic activity?
14. Classification of economic
activities
A. Production
 Primary: harvesting commodities from nature (subsistence
agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining)
 Secondary:
 Purposeful tending of crops and livestock (commercial agriculture)
 Increasing the value of commodities by changing their form
(manufacturing)
 Tertiary: services – financial, health, entertainment, education,
information, and data-processing services; middle-management
administrative services; government bureaucrats
 Quaternary:
 high-level managerial and executive administrative positions (public and
private)
 Scientific research and development services
B. Exchange
 Transportation and distribution services:
 Increasing the value of commodities by changing their location (freight
transportation)
 Satisfying the needs of people by changing their location (Passenger
transportation)
 Telecommunications
 Exchanging services and ideas by telecommunication or face-to-face contact
 Trade
 Warehousing and distribution function
 Wholesale trade
 Retail trade
15. Scope of the study
Economic geographers study countries with
all types of economies and states; from both
developed and developing worlds
(including centrally planned economies).
Interdependence of all economic activities
in all world regions has been intensified in
recent years. We now talk of global
interdependence, the geography of
international business, etc.
17. Main goal of economic
geographers
The main goal of economic geographers is
whenever possible to develop
generalizations and theories to account for
the spatial variations
In some cases the explanations appear
simple and straightforward, in others they
are more elusive and complex, as is the case
with world poverty.

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Course: Economic Geography

 Graphos means ‘description’

However many disciplines ‘describe the

‘There would be no geography if physical

The geographer is concerned primarily with

There are five themes in geography:

 Human environment relations

5. Location (where is it?)

 Absolute (or mathematical) location describes an exact

Differences might be defined in terms of climate,

Humans adapt to the environment (hunting,

(When humans modify their environment through

A study of movement includes learning

Physical geography includes the following

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