Again, today there is a different rigor to the field, Geographers now tend to study the technologies used to study the earth (remote sensing, geodesy, aerial stereo photography, computer mapping, interactive cartography, navigation)—what is generally lumped together under the catch-all “Geomatics”. But I still have to remind most folks that although I am indeed a geographer, I am not an expert on state capitals, the names of rivers, or county boundaries.

But seriously, are there any laws of Geography?

And the surveying of political boundaries is very much science. Hell, the North Carolina / South Carolina was recently re-mapped, with interesting results.

The demarcation of the Mason-Dixon line was an extraordinary act of surveying involving regular astronomic observations. Oh, and you know you have to calculate that your plumb line will deviate by a few seconds of a degree due to the mountain you are traversing, right?

I’ve got a few hundred different coordinate systems in my GIS software.

Geography isn’t a science?

Hogwash.

I hope you’re doing well these days buddy. Cheers.

Academic geography is an interdisciplinary social/environmental science that attempts to make general statements and conclusions about how natural and environmental factors interact with human communities, industry and agriculture. For example, a typical geographical question might be something like “What type of agricultural activity and social organization would be expected to occur in a landscape dominated by glacial depositional features like moraines and eskers?”

My Master’s thesis in cultural geography was about the distribution of residential swimming pools in Tampa, FL and how it related to local soil types, drainage, water tables, property values and zoning regulations. Hopefully, a good analysis of these interactions might yield information on how Tampa’s swimming pool distribution resembled (or differed) from other communities in other parts of the country.

How nature affects human settlement patterns and activities is what Geography is all about. For example, it is highly recommended that military men study Geography because the climate, soils, landforms, and water bodies have such a critical effect on the movement and concealment of troops. Political boundaries, transport and communications networks and other human features also reflect the natural features of the landscape and how we plan our activities around them. City planners and land managers are also expected to be conversant with Geographical concepts, both natural and human. That’s what got me my job in the County Planning Department, not my degree in astronomy.

In addition, Geography is also now taking over the arts of acquiring, cataloging, displaying and interpreting spatial data, such as aerial photography, satellite imagery, remote sensing, cartography, Geographic Information Systems, GPS, etc. This was just starting when I was beginning work in air topo mapping, so I figured it would look good on my resume.

I’m no more likely to know the capital of Wyoming or which states border New Jersey than anyone else.

In that sense history is far more like geography than economics. Knowing where mountain ranges, floodplains and political borders are is not science. Knowing where Lapland is isn’t science. You can’t even compare history and geography as a science to economics with a straight face.

I’d certainly rank economics a far more advanced science that other social sciences such as psychology, sociology and anthropology.

I think that should settle the question once and for all.