SCOPE OF ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

Economic geography was defined by the German scholar Gotz in 1882 as "a scientific analysis of the character of world territories in their direct influence on goods."Despite the fact that Gotz was the one who coined the term "economic geography," his influence was limited to Germany.

Because the abstract principles of the time were not developed, they could not be connected to economic geography. Economic geography owes its development as an academic topic to the British public's interest in business. It's worth noting that George Chisholm, the pioneer of contemporary economic geography, intended to instill a sense of intellectual curiosity in the study of geographic facts.

He believed that economic geography's fundamental purpose is to "create some plausible forecast of the future course of commercial development insofar as that is affected by geographical conditions."Chisholm, on the other hand, focused on commercial development and primarily addressed physical characteristics and climate in connection to products in his discussion of the issue.

Others began to think of economic geography in terms of productive vocations as a result of this emphasis on physical features and climate in connection to products. “Economic geography deals with productive activities and strives to explain why certain places are outstanding in the production and exportation of particular items while others are significant,” Jones and Darkenwald (1950) write.

On the other hand, according to Ellsworth Huntington (1940), economic geography encompasses all forms of materials, resources, activities, conventions, capabilities, and forms of aptitude that play a role in earning a livelihood. In his book Fundamentals of Economic Geography, Bengston and Van-Royen (1957) stated:

Economic geography is the study of how various places of the world differ in terms of basic resources. It seeks to assess the impact of variances in the physical environment on the use of these resources.

It investigates the disparities in economic development between regions or countries around the world. It investigates transportation, trade routes, and trade as a result of these many developments, as well as how they are influenced by the physical environment.

Other definitions of economic geography include:

J. McFarlane: “Economic geography is the study of the influence of man's physical environment on his economic activities, particularly the form and structure of the land surface, the climatic conditions that prevail upon it, and the place relations in which its various regions stand to one another.”

R.E. Murphy: “Economic geography has to do with similarities and differences from place toplace in the ways people make a living.”

R.N. Brown: “Economic geography is that aspect of the subject which deals with the influence of the environment – inorganic and organic – on the activities of man.”

E.B. Shaw: “Economic geography is concerned with problem of making a living, with world industries, with basic resources and industrial commodities.”

N.J.G. Pounds: “Economic geography is concerned with the distribution of man’s productive activities over the surface of the earth.”

As can be seen from the definitions above, economic geography is primarily concerned with man's productive activities and their interactions with the environment. Primary activities are those that receive simple commodities or raw materials from the soil, the sea, or the rocks.

Secondary and tertiary activities are those that receive complex commodities or raw materials from the soil, the sea, or the rocks. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing are among them.

The secondary set of operations is the manufacturing, processing, or fabrication of these commodities in factories and workshops. Following manufacture, transportation services, as well as insurance, broker, and dealer services, are required. These services are referred to as tertiary activities. All of these human activities are tied to environmental circumstances in some way.

In their book Economic Geography (1998), Wheeler, Muller, Thrall, and Fik describe economic geography using two continuums: a human-physical continuum and a topical-regional continuum.

 As a result, economic geography, which focuses on human production, distribution, and consumption, naturally falls toward the human end of the scale. Climate, geography, soil, and hydrology will all play a role.

The second continuum provides a technique to analyzing geographic variation in human and physical factors, or the study of the economic geography of a region, a second region, a third region, and so on, until the entire planet has been covered. It also covers the principles governing the distribution of various economic activities.