Aspects of Geography, Part.1

Aspects of Geography, Part.1

In broad outline, geography can be divided into two parts, physical geography and human geography.

Physical geography studies about physical aspects, while human –social- geography  studies about social aspects. Those two aspects have influence on the environment of human life. Physical aspects involve: earth’s relief, mineral and structure of rocks, water, weather and climate, flora also fauna. Meanwhile, social aspects involve aspects of social, politics, economy and culture. In geography, physical aspects and social aspects always relate to other sciences.

1. Physical Aspects

The geographical aspects that can influence human life is physical aspect. Several physical aspects that influence human life are, for example: climate, relief, earthquake, volcanism and so on. Certainly in geography physical aspects that can influence human life are so many, but in this discussion they are limited to several aspects.

Examples of physical aspects that can influence human life are as follows:

  

      a. Climate and its elements.

Climate is an important geographical element that can influence human activities.

Climate condition on earth’s surface varies. The factors that form of Asia region is archipelago that has four basic climatic characteristics, they are:

(1)   Annual average temperature is high.

(2)   Has two seasons that is rainy season and dry season.

(3)   High air humidity.

The influence of climate on human activity:

(1)   Fisherman start to go to sea (sail to the sea) at night, because they use the land breeze, on the contrary at day time, fishermen come back to the land by using sea breeze.

(2)   Around the months of October-April farmers from Asia start to work on their land, because in those months has rainy season.

  

      b. Relief of Earth.

 Earth’s relief is the highness and lowness of earth’s surface. Earth’s relief is a physical aspect of geography that has influence on the life of humans or plants. The following are several influences of earth’s relief on human life.

 The influence of earth’s relief on the growth of plants can be learned in Junghun’s classification as follow:

(1)   Hot Zone, 0 – 700 meters => The kinds of plants that live there are riceplant, sugarcane, and coconut.

(2)   Temperate Zone, 700 – 1500 meters => The kind of plants that live there are coffee, tea quinine, rubber, and holticulture.

(3)   Cool Zone, 1500 – 2500 meters => The kinds of plants are casuarinas tree and pine.

(4)   Cold Zone, >2500 meters => The kind of plant that live is moss.

      c. Earthquake

Earthquake, whether tectonic or volcanic, greatly influences human life. The number of times earthquake happens influenced by geological position.

The effect produced by earthquake on the life on earth’s surface is very vast, example:

(1)   The presence of tectonic earthquake can help geologists to determine the content of minerals in lithosphere.

(2)   The presence of earthquake can help architects in determining the shape of houses and materials used to build houses that are earthquake-proof.

2. Social Aspects => click here