Geography: A bridge between Natural and Social Science

 

Geography can be defined as the social science that focuses on the spatial distribution of human and physical phenomenon. It consists of two branches: Human Geography: It is the branch of the geography that studies patterns and processes that shape the human body.

Physical Geography: It is the branch of the geography that deals with the physical characteristics of the earth and also studies the characteristics on the earth’s surface and beneath the surface.

Geography as a discipline is concerned with three sets of questions:

(i)               Some questions are related to the identification of the patterns of natural and cultural features as found over the surface of the earth. These are the questions about what?

(ii)             (Some questions are related to the distribution of the natural and human/ cultural features over the surface of the earth. These are the questions about where?

(iii)          The third question is related to the explanation or the causal relationships between features and the processes and phenomena. This aspect of geography is related to the question, why?

Geography and Natural Science

Natural science is a branch of science concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical  evidence from observation and experimentation.  All the branches of physical geography have interface with natural sciences. The traditional physical geography is linked with geology, meteorology, hydrology and pedology, and thus, geomorphology, climatology, oceanography and soil geography respectively have very close link with the natural sciences as these derive their data from these sciences. Bio-Geography is closely related to botany, zoology as well as ecology as human beings are located in different locational niche. A geographer should have some proficiency in mathematics and art, particularly in drawing maps. Geography is very much linked with the study of astronomical locations and deals with latitudes and longitudes. The cartographic and quantitative techniques require sufficient proficiency in mathematics, statistics and econometrics.

Geography and Social Science

 Social science is the branch of science devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. Each social science has interface with one branch of geography. All the social science disciplines, viz. sociology, political science, economics and demography study different aspects of social reality. The branches of geography, viz. social, political, economic and population and settlements are closely linked with these disciplines as each one of them has spatial attributes. The core concern of political science is territory, people and sovereignty while political geography is also interested in the study of the state as a spatial unit as well as people and their political behaviour. Economics deals with basic attributes of the economy such as production, distribution, exchange and consumption. Each of these attributes also has spatial aspects and here comes the role of economic geography to study the spatial aspects of production, distribution, exchange and consumption. Likewise, population geography is closely linked with the discipline of demography.

Conclusion : Geography contains the subject matters of both natural sciences and social sciences. The knowledge obtained from natural science aspect of Geography is used in the social science whereas the knowledge obtained from social science aspect is used to predict the natural science scope of geography. For eg: It is well known that people in hot regions tend to have dark skins and culture of doing less work. Hot regions falls under the scope of natural science and dark skins and culture of doing less work falls under social science. Some times the nature of the places can be predicted with the help of these characteristics like dark skins and doing less works. In the conclusion, geography is the subject bridge of natural science and social science.