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Regional Geography

In much of the popular conception of geography, the discipline is concerned with the study of regions and little else. Geographers have examined regions at a variety of spatial scales and from a diversity of conceptual perspectives. Although this topic may appear to be relatively free of controversy, in fact the use of regions and their philosophical significance has been the source of considerable debate.

Classical Regional Geography

Since the classical Greeks, regions have played a central role in geography as a means to collect, organize, and give meaning to spatial distributions. During the 17th century, Bernhard Varenius (1622–1650) wrote the Geographia Generalis, a volume that became a major textbook in Europe for the next 150 years and was translated into English by Sir Isaac Newton. Varenius distinguished between specific geography, which was concerned with the unique character of places, and what he called general geography, which was concerned with universal laws.

During the 19th century, three figures loomed large in the formalization of regional geography. First, Carl Ritter (1779–1859) wrote the 19-volume Erdkunde (published in 1818), a comprehensive world regional geography text that emphasized the comparison and synthesis of facts through a regional approach, largely with religious goals in mind. Geography's purpose was to detect the whole character of places. Comparative local studies were to be the basis through which generalizations could be made. Ritter claimed to see evidence of divine plans in the world's geography, advocating a religious teleological interpretation. Second, Paul Vidal de la Blache (1845–1918), widely seen as the founder of modern French geography, developed the notion of genres de vie (or local lifestyles), which celebrated the uniqueness of rural landscapes in French pays. Noting the variations across France in the face of a common climate, he maintained that culture—not nature—was primarily responsible, using this theme to bludgeon environmental determinism and introduce possibilism. Third, Alfred Hettner (1859–1941), in the Kantian tradition, defined geography in chorological terms, believing that the discipline's importance was maintained by its comprehensive regional approach rather than by its subject area and that synthesis was its greatest strength.

Areal Differentiation

The American version of regional geography reached its apex between the two world wars with the ascent of the school variously labeled as areal differentiation, chorology, or regional description. The ascent of this line of thought was to be found in the aftermath of environmental determinism, when the discipline's retreat from theory sharply differentiated it from other social sciences that were making great strides. Its embodiment is Richard Hartshorne (1899–1992) and his definitive landmark text, The Nature of Geography (published in 1939). Having studied under Hettner and thus heavily Kantian in outlook, Hartshorne made a variety of claims regarding regional geography as the definition of the discipline's core and claim to uniqueness within the academic division of labor. Geography, like history, was synthetic, integrating the analysis of different phenomena as they were manifested in unique combinations in particular places. Regions allowed the analysis of both human and physical phenomena, transcending the growing schism between two parts of the discipline. Because the complexity of the world is overwhelming, Hartshorne advocated the study of small regions with relatively little internal variation, accreting this into a mosaic that would encompass larger areas. This view subscribed to a crude spatial determinism in which proximity came to stand for causality; where things were enough to ascertain their nature, and closer phenomena were more likely to be related than more distant ones. He well understood that regions are only tools and, in the vein of Kant, maintained that regions are only mental constructs, that is, simplifications of the world that the mind uses to impose order on the world.

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