---
title: "History of geography"
chunk: 11/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geography"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:59:47.409771+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The term critical geography has been in use since at least 1749, when the book  Geography reformed: a new system of general geography, according to an Accurate Analysis of the science in four parts dedicated a chapter to the topic titled "of Critical Geography." This chapter described critical geography as an approach geographers take to build upon the work of others, and make corrections to their maps based on new information. In the 1970s, the term saw a resurgence as so called "radical geographers" took on the framework of critical theory and Marxist philosophy, using critical geography as an umbrella uniting various theoretical frameworks in geography, including Marxist geography and feminist geography.
Critical geography re-emerged within the discipline in part as a radical critique of positivist approaches that gained popularity during the quantitative revolution. The first strain of critical geography to emerge was humanistic geography. Drawing on the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology, humanistic geographers (such as Yi-Fu Tuan) focused on people's sense of, and relationship with, places. More influential was Marxist geography, which applied the social theories of Karl Marx and his followers to geographic phenomena. David Harvey, Milton Santos and Richard Peet are well-known Marxist geographers. Feminist geography is, as the name suggests, the use of ideas from feminism in geographic contexts. The most recent strain of critical geography is postmodernist geography, which employs the ideas of postmodernist and poststructuralist theorists to explore the social construction of spatial relations.
Critical geography is often viewed as directly opposed to the positive approaches during the 20th century, and quantitative geographers have levied counter criticisms. Some argue the rise in critical geography was in response to the difficulty in understanding the new techniques and technology, and that the early criticisms of these technologies critical geographers put forth in the 20th century have been addressed by advances in computers. Critical geography has been called "anti-science."

== 21st century ==

=== Social theory/spatial analysis split ===
After an initial debate on the merits of positivism, where critical geographers attempted "to excise everything that went before in quantitative geography" and "overthrow the dominant quantitative approach" during the 1960s and 1970s, by 1995, GIS practitioners and quantitative geographers began to "decline comment" to critical geography in an academic context. While quantitative geographers and critical geographers continued to work together in some context, a lack of "common vocabulary," and rounds of "polarizing debates," lead to a situation of "mutual indifference and absence of dialog between the two groups" during the 2000s. The result of this split led to the creation of two camps within human geography that many view as irreconcilable, described by geographer Mei-Po Kwan as the "social-cultural geographies" and the "spatial-analytical geographies."

== See also ==
Chorography
Economic geography
Geographers on Film
Human geography
List of explorers
List of geographers
List of maritime explorers
Physical geography
Royal Geographical Society
Royal Scottish Geographical Society

== Notes ==

== References ==
Bowen, M. (1981). Empiricism and Geographical Thought from Francis Bacon to Alexander von Humboldt. Cambridge University Press.
Casey, E. (2013). The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. University of California Press.
Earle, C., Kenzer, M. S., & Mathewson, K. (Eds.). (1995). Concepts in Human Geography. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Harley, J.B. and David Woodward. (eds.) The History of Cartography series Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987
Hsu, Mei-ling. "The Qin Maps: A Clue to Later Chinese Cartographic Development," Imago Mundi (Volume 45, 1993): 90–100.
Livingstone, D. (1993). The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the history of a contested enterprise. Wiley-Blackwell.
Martin, Geoffrey J. All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Part 3. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.

== External links ==
The Encyclopædia of Geography: comprising a complete description of the earth, physical, statistical, civil, and political, 1852, Hugh Murray, 1779–1846, et al. (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea) at the University of Michigan Making of America site.
Allen, Nellie Burnham (1916). Geographical and industrial studies; Asia. Ginn and company. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
Smith, Joseph Russell (1921). Peoples and countries. Vol. 1 of Human Geography. John C. Winston Company. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
The Story of Maps, a history of cartography; why North is at the "top" of a map, how they surveyed all of Europe and other interesting facts.