GGR111H5 Lecture Notes - Environmental Determinism, Chorology, Chorography
Document Summary
Greek, roman, chinese, islamic empires: greeks were the first civilization to become geographically mobile to establish colonies, greeks initiated two major geographic traditions, literary: involving written descriptions of the known world. Eratosthenes (father of geo) contributed to the literary tradition by writing a book describing the known world: mathematical: by the 5th century, greeks knew that the earth was sphere. Hipparchus devised a grid system of imaginary lines on the surface of the earth known as longitude and latitude. Latitude was easy to calculate because it depends on the angle of the sun. longitude was not and it required estimation. Cosmography: refers to the universe, heavens and earth. Chorography: refers to places smaller than the earth, such as countries. European colonization/imperialism the word geography did not enter the english language until the 16th century: medieval europeans made very few contributions to geographic knowledge, maps produced by islamist geographers centered on arabia.
