Areal differentiation
Topic: Geography as a Discipline: Nature, Branches and Approaches · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 1 "Geography as a Discipline"; Class 12, Ch 1 "Human Geography: Nature and Scope"
Meaning
Areal differentiation means studying how things differ from one part of the earth's surface to another, and why they differ. "Areal" means "to do with areas". Richard Hartshorne defined geography as "the description and explanation of the areal differentiation of the earth's surface". Alfred Hettner said much the same thing: geography studies how related things differ in different parts of the earth's surface. This view matters because it gives geography its own job: explaining differences between places, not just listing them.
Example
Punjab, in north-west India, grows mainly wheat. Kerala, on the south-west coast, grows rice, coconut and spices. A geographer explains this difference through climate, soil, water supply, market demand and the technology farmers use.
Don't confuse with
- Spatial synthesis: areal differentiation looks at how places differ. Spatial synthesis joins many facts together to understand one place as a whole.