Quantitative Methods

The sudden rise of quantitative methods in geography in the 1950s and 1960s is often regarded as one of the greatest achievements in the discipline. Quantitative methods can be traced as far back as Thales and Eratosthenes, who were in their own right mathematical geographers in ancient Greece. However, the 1950s are thought to be the origin of modern quantitative methods in the discipline. The closing of Harvard's geography department in 1948 was an early indication of a crisis in the discipline concerning its inability to meaningfully explain processes or phenomena; this limitation included a lack of quantitative analysis that relegated the discipline to a classroom setting and inhibited its growth and utility in both private and public sectors. This entry describes the evolution of ...