Geography as an integrating discipline
Topic: Geography as a Discipline: Nature, Branches and Approaches · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 1 "Geography as a Discipline"
Meaning
Many sciences each study one part of the earth. Natural sciences include geology, pedology (soil science), oceanography, botany, zoology and meteorology. Social sciences include economics, history, sociology, political science and anthropology. Geography takes data from all of them and joins it into one whole. Space is the common thread that ties the pieces together. Geography sees the world as a system of links, like a "global village" where places depend on one another.
Example
To explain cotton farming in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, a geographer uses pedology (black soil that holds moisture), meteorology (monsoon rainfall), economics (cotton prices and markets) and sociology (farmers' lives). Together these explain the region's farming pattern.
Don't confuse with
- Spatial synthesis: integration describes geography's link with other sciences. Spatial synthesis is the result of that integration: understanding one place as a whole.