Modern geography is a knowledge form adapted to the industrial and commercial society. It is characterized by the explanatory description of various phenomena on the earth's surface and their relations as the main body; Its logical reasoning and conceptual system are gradually improving; The disciplines are increasingly divided and there are many schools. As the birthplace of modern geography, Germany was influenced by developed countries such as France, Britain, Russia and the United States, and later by underdeveloped countries including China. (1early 9th century ~1late 9th century) The most outstanding figures are German A. von humboldt and C. Ritter (see color map). They are not only the founders of Germany, but also the founders of modern geography in the world.
Humboldt devoted himself to exploring nature all his life, covering Europe, North and South America. His report, A Journey to the Tropical New World (30 volumes), is the first encyclopedia of the nature, economy and politics of the New World and the first regional geography book of northern Latin America. He put forward the contour map of the annual average temperature in the world, the concept of the mainland and the zonal horizontal belt theory of plants, which are important theories of geography, and thus he is recognized as the founder of physical geography and plant geography. Hong's masterpiece Universe solves three major problems in modern geography: ① The earth is a unified whole, and human beings are a part of nature; (2) Mainly discuss the differences of related phenomena in different areas of the surface; ③ When studying specific natural elements, we should pay attention to their relationship with the surrounding environment.
Ritter, who teaches at the University of Berlin, is the first geography professor in Germany and the founder of the Berlin Geographical Society. His famous saying that "land affects human beings, and human beings also affect land" is considered as the earliest interpreter of the relationship between man and land in modern geography and the founder of human geography. His pioneering views on this area are concentrated in Volume 19 of General Theory of Earth Science, which defines the concept and hierarchy of this area. He also thinks that the basic concept of geography is consistency in differences, which leads to two basic parts of this discipline: system of geography and regional geography.
Hong and Li er created a new situation in geography and humanities respectively, and both attached importance to regional analysis. However, the former focuses on the geographical combination of natural elements on the surface, including their influence on human phenomena, while the latter thinks that people are the apex of geographical research. (19 ~ the end of 1950s) At the end of19, German F. von Richthofen divided the earth's surface into four spheres (lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere), and thought that geography was a science to study the earth's surface and related things and phenomena. At the beginning of the 20th century, Sweden's S. de Yale enriched Lee's content about the earth's surface, and regarded it as an overlapping zone of five spheres: lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere and human sphere. In this way, the definition of geography is concrete.
Modern geography began to develop as a basic natural science after geology and anthropology. /kloc-The internal investigations in Asia and Africa, the Western Expedition of the United States, the coastal development of Australia and the exploration of the North and South poles in the 0/9th century have accumulated a lot of first-hand materials for geography, and combined with the progress of surveying and mapping technology, a number of more accurate maps or atlases of various countries and the world have emerged. From the end of last century to the beginning of this century, many universities in western developed countries set up geography departments, and geography began to become a professional field. With the further development of geography, there has been a division of disciplines. After the independent development of meteorology, oceanography and pedology, some geographers emphasized the direction of regions or landforms, while others launched humanistic movements, which made the humanities branch of geography flourish. After 1930s, geography gradually turned to participate in economic work, and western applied geography and Soviet architectural geography came into being.
The development of modern geography has made many achievements, forming three traditions and three schools. The early modern geography of the school of ecological tradition and environment regarded man as a factor of the earth's surface from the ecological point of view, and the representative figure was F. Laczer, a German. Laplace's "Human Geography" expounds the role of geographical environment in human distribution and migration; Political geography is a supplement to the previous work. Under the influence of social Darwinism, the concept of "living space" of biology is applied to the country. At the beginning of the 20th century, Ms. E.C. semple, a Laplace student and an American, systematically expounded the leading role of environment in human beings. Another American geographer, E. Huntington, wrote Civilization, Climate and Human Geography, which elaborated on climate determinism in detail.
In the first 20 years of the 20th century, European and American countries doubted and denied environmental determinism, and the theory of the possibility of human-land relationship and the theory of ecological adjustment appeared. Its main representatives are French P Vidal-Brandt and his disciple J Bruner. Vichy believes that the task of geography is to explain the spatial relationship between natural and human conditions; Bai's point of view is more clear. He said: "Although the environment is enough to affect human activities, human beings also have the ability to manipulate and conquer the environment." The advocator of ecological regulation theory is H.H. Barros of the United States. He believes that geography should be humanized and become human ecology, and it is a pioneer for geography to participate in practical work with ecological methods. Since the 1920s, western countries criticized the geographical environmental determinism, the 1930s, the Soviet Union, and the 1950s, China, environmentalism was stopped in the middle of the 20th century.
Description tradition and regional school record and describe the distribution of various phenomena on the surface, which is the oldest tradition in geography. Therefore, the earth's surface must be divided into regions in hierarchical order. The founder of regional school of modern geography is German A. Hertner, and his successor is American R. Hartshorne. At the beginning of the 20th century, Richthofen and his disciple Hertner proposed that the core of geography should be regional research. According to hershey's viewpoint, Hartshorne wrote two monographs, Nature of Geography and Perspective of Geographical Nature, in the late 1930s and 1950s, respectively, arguing that geography studies the regional differentiation characteristics of the earth's surface, starting with departmental geography and ending with regional geography. But in the end, because only the mechanism of replacing area with regional synthesis was discussed, the effect was quite unsatisfactory. However, with the advocacy of hershey and Hale, especially with the efforts of Frenchman E de Mardon, A de Manrong, American D.S. whittle and P.E. James, a golden age of regional geography appeared in the west in the middle of the 20th century.
The regional geography of the Soviet Union is not only influenced by the West, mainly Germany, but also has its own traditions. In the early 1930s, a regional school of economic geography headed by ннннннннннннннннннннннннннн
Integrating Tradition and Landscape School In order to deepen the study of various phenomena on the earth's surface, the landscape school appeared. From the viewpoint of genesis, the earth's surface types were divided by comprehensive methods to make up for the shortcomings of environmental school and regional school. Landscape refers to the synthesis of visible scenery on the surface and in a specific area. German O. ruutel put forward the landscape theory at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, arguing that the center of geography is the study of visible landscape, and landscape is a representation unit of regional combination, in which "sensible" natural and human phenomena with regional significance form a unique combination. According to S Passarge, a contemporary German, landscape is a regional type, that is, a collection of surface-related elements, and the determination of its boundary is the most important, and the best symbol of division is vegetation. After that, under the influence of Paavo's thought, the landscape geographical belt of лсс Berger in the Soviet Union was formed.
In the mid-1920s, American C.O. Sol published a famous paper "The Form of Landscape", which regarded landscape as the basic unit of the surface. He believes that landscape consists of two parts: natural landscape, that is, the original landscape of an area before people enter; Cultural landscape is a landscape transformed by people. Saul and many of his disciples studied a large number of examples of landscape changes and revealed the role of human beings in changing the face of the earth, which dwarfed the environmentalism theory and localism program at that time.
For a long time, the geographical circle of the Soviet Union did not recognize the existence of cultural landscape, so the landscape school in economic geography could only be reinvented. This is the theory of regional production complex put forward by Kolosovski after the 1930s. This theory has played a great role in the regional development and economic division of labor in the Soviet Union. In the early 1960s, ва Anuchin tried to combine the ecological, regional and landscape viewpoints of geography in his theoretical works, and established the existence of unified geography from the comprehensive study of regional complexes, especially regions. This not only conforms to the unified tradition of geography, but also adapts to the trend of horizontal development of disciplines after the 1960 s, so it has finally attracted the attention of geographical circles.
Other Achievements Modern geography has made many great achievements in its development. For example, M.F. Murray of the United States put forward the first atmospheric circulation model in the middle of19th century and published the first modern oceanographic book Marine Physical Geography (1855). Russia, I'm the one. Dokuchaev put forward the theory of soil zonation and natural zone in the late19th century. American W.M. Davis put forward the theory of erosion cycle at the end of 19; From the beginning of 20th century to 1930s, German scientist Ke Ben put forward climate classification and continental climate model. British H.J. Mackinder put forward the geopolitical theory of "heartland theory" in 1904 and 19 19 respectively. British a.j. herbertson completed the world natural division; German W. Christalle put forward the central theory in 1930s. The Soviet Union. Budko published the Thermal Balance of the Earth's Surface in 1956.
The appearance of modern geography in China is nearly 1 century later than that in western countries, and there are also many achievements. For example, Zhang's masterpiece Geo-Literature (1908) combines the airport-free and airport-free on the earth's surface, which is 1 year earlier than similar works by French Ma Dong, and the book also divides the whole country into 18 geo-cultural regions. Zhu Kezhen's Calculation of China Airflow (1933) and Southeast Monsoon and Rainfall in China (1934) reveals the regularity of pressure field, monsoon, precipitation and their relationship in China. Ding Wenjiang, Weng and Ceng Shiying compiled "New Map of the Republic of China" in 1934, which is the first atlas of China with layered color contour lines representing the terrain in China.