The Planet Earth

Geography is a domain of science which concerns itself with the planet earth, the natural forces affecting and changing it, along with its human inhabitants. The term geography itself is a Greek word, meaning 'earth descri ption.' The subject can be bifurcated into two subsidiary fields: physical geography, and human geography.

Human geography focuses on the particular forces and processes that influence and shape human society. These include economic factors, politics, and religion. In particular it investigates the nature of the different areas of human habitation, such as villages, towns, and cities. Such information as population distribution, and age demographics within populated areas, will be of particular interest. How these statistics change over time, and how they are affected by numerous factors, such as pollution, and ecological changes, will be of importance to the subject.

Physical geography concerns itself with the investigation of natural processes in the earth’s environment. An example of this is geomorphology, which pertains to the forces that affect the surface of the earth. A major part of this domain includes the investigation of plate tectonics, which describes the motion of the earth’s lithosphere. The movement of these plates gives rise to numerous phenomena, such as mountain building, oceanic trench formation, along with earthquakes and volcanoes. This study is of obvious importance, as it will aid the early detection of earthquakes, and the eruption of volcanoes, which will save many lives.

Erosion is a branch of geography which deals with the way the earth is changed by such processes as wave action, and the wind. Over time waves can batter down the highest of cliffs; and wind carrying desert sand can slowly cut through stone. Rivers will pick up debris, and will cut new courses through the landscape, while glaciers scrape and scarify their way through mountains, gouging through the hardest rocks as if they were putty.