What does economic geography, physical geography, and the regional economy study? What does the socio-economic geography of Russia and the world study?

So, what does the economic geography of the world and Russia study? What is the subject of the study of landscape studies? What does economic geography and the regional economy study?

The origins of science

When did the geography come about? It's not easy to answer this question. Perhaps it was born precisely when the ancient man first drew a sharp pebble on the wall of his cave a primitive drawing of the area surrounding his immediate habitat.

The first scientific expeditions were carried out by the ancient Egyptians about 5 thousand years ago. They were primarily interested in the basin of the Red Sea, as well as in the central regions of Africa. They also invented a calendar, so that it would be more convenient to monitor the spills of rivers and other natural phenomena.

A huge leap in the early stage of the development of geographical science occurred in ancient times. Eratosthenes, Strabo, Claudius Ptolemy - all these scientists made a huge contribution to it. The works of Aristotle laid the foundations of modern meteorology and oceanology. By the way, it was in the so-called Hellenistic period of history that the first signs of the separation of a unified science of geography began to appear.

Structure of modern geographical science

Five or six centuries ago, the world's leading countries with unprecedented excitement practiced colonization of new lands. Accordingly, the essence of geography in those days was reduced to only one: a thorough study of newly discovered territories and the laying of new routes for future voyages and expeditions.

But today everything is completely different. Modern geography is a science that spends a lot of time organizing the knowledge and facts extracted by naturalists and travelers throughout the previous centuries. It tries to identify those patterns that will be valid for both natural and socio-economic processes and phenomena.

Geography today is divided into three large branches. It:

• Physical;
• Economic;
• Social geography.

The last two areas of knowledge are often combined into one discipline called "socio-economic geography."

Within the framework of each of the above-listed sectors, there are a number of other scientific disciplines. For example, as part of physical geography, hydrology, climatology, geomorphology, glaciology, etc. are distinguished. Social and economic geography is divided into political, medical, military, cultural geography, urban studies, regional studies and other disciplines.

What does economic geography study? What are the main goals and objectives of this science? Let's try to answer these questions further.

What does economic geography study?

This scientific discipline is being studied today in high school, colleges, technical schools and universities. What is its essence? What does the subject study?

Economic geography (or social) is a complex scientific discipline that studies the spatial organization of the economic life of society, the country, the region, the planet as a whole. The main object of her research is the so-called territorial-economic systems.

What does economic geography study more specifically? The subject of this science is the study of the economic diversity of a particular country or region, the search for similar and different features in the economic development of different regions, the identification of important regularities in the distribution of social production.

Modern economic geography poses a lot of theoretical and practical problems: from the search for constructive solutions to the problems of territorial-economic systems to the preparation of relevant specialists - economic geographers. At the same time, a wide range of scientific methods are used in economic and geographical studies: balance, statistical, "field", comparative-descriptive, historical, cartographic, and many others.

What does social geography and the regional economy study?

If economic geography deals with the study of the economy, then the social, respectively, explores the society (population). Demographic indicators, education and medicine, the ethnic composition of the population, local conflicts and the level of development of culture - all this is included in a wide range of interests of this scientific discipline.

Perhaps the main task of social geography is to determine the characteristics of the socialization of a particular person, as well as to assess the pace of development in general. At the same time, science not only explores various social processes taking place in regional social systems, but also tries to develop an algorithm for their optimization.

The regional economy is another discipline that is closely related to economic and social geography. However, it belongs to the system of purely economic sciences. The regional economy studies the regional organization of production. Its main task is to identify the specifics of specific economic regions, as well as to develop effective programs for their development in the future.

What does the socio-economic geography of the world and Russia study?

The difference between the socio-economic geography of the world and Russia is obvious. If in the first case science studies the spatial organization of the economic life of society on a planetary scale, in the second case it studies the territorial-economic systems within a single state.

What does the economic geography of Russia study? This discipline reveals the general picture of the development of the economy in the state, helps to understand the features of the location of the main productions, examines the patterns of development of the country's economy as a whole and by individual regions.

To date, the most important centers for the development of socio-economic geography are in the USA (Clark University in Massachusetts), Great Britain (Oxford University) and Russia (Lomonosov Moscow State University).

Physical geography and landscape studies

Physical geography deals with the study of the geographical envelope of our planet as a whole, as well as the study of its individual components. In this regard, it is divided into several independent scientific disciplines, among which:

• climatology;
• meteorology;
• Geomorphology;
• hydrology;
• Oceanology;
• paleogeography;
• Biogeography, etc.

Somewhat apart is landscape science - a science that studies the genesis, structure, functioning and development of natural complexes (landscapes). The name of the discipline comes from the German word Landschaft, which translates as "landscape", "kind of terrain". The foundation of landscape science was laid in the works of German scientists - Karl Ritter and Alexander Humboldt.

By the way, this "layer" of geographic sciences is most closely connected with other sciences of natural science - physics, chemistry, biology, ecology and soil science.