MEANING OF ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

Human Geography has a subfield called Economic Geography. Economic geography is the study of how human economic activities – production, consumption, and exchange – vary across space, with a focus on resource endowments, international trade and commerce, population growth, settlements, development, interaction and interdependencies, and regional supply and demand.

The study of man and his economic actions in a variety of conditions is known as economic geography. When it comes to the definition of geography, geographers have differing viewpoints.

●According to Hartshorn and Alexander: “Economic Geography is the study of the spatial variation on the earth’s surface of activities related to producing, exchanging and consuming goods and services. Whenever possible the goal is to develop generalizations and theories to account for these spatial variations.”

● According to J. MacFarlane describes Economic Geography as the study of “influence

exerted on the economic activity of man by his physical environment, and more

specifically by the form and structure of the surface of the land, the climatic conditions

which prevail upon it and the spatial relations in which its different regions stand to one

another.”

● According to Dudley Stamp, Economic Geography “involves consideration of the

geographical and other factors which influence man’s productivity, but only in limited

depths, so far as they are connected with production and trade.”

● Professor E. W. Zimmermann pointed out that, Economic Geography deals with the

economic life of man with relation to environment.

● As early as in 1882, the German scholar, Gotz had defined economic geography as “a

scientific investigation of the nature of world areas in their direct influence of goods”.