(19th century ~ 195s)
Modern geography is a form of knowledge adapted to industrial and commercial society. It is characterized by the explanatory description of various phenomena on the earth's surface and their relations as the main body; Its logical reasoning and conceptual system are gradually improving; Subjects are increasingly divided and schools are numerous. Germany is the birthplace of modern geography, which was influenced by developed countries such as France, Britain, Russia and the United States earlier, and then by underdeveloped countries, including China. The most outstanding figures (from the early 19th century to the late 19th century) are German A.von Humboldt and C. Ritter (see color map). They are not only the founders of Germany, but also the founders of modern geography in the world.
Humboldt devoted his whole life to investigating nature, and traveled all over Europe, North and South America. His report, Travel in Tropical New World (3 volumes), is the first encyclopedia of nature, economy and politics in the New World and the first regional geography book in northern Latin America. He put forward the world average annual temperature isoline map, the concept of continental, and the theory of zonal horizontal zone of plants, which is an important theory of geography, thus recognizing him as the founder of physical geography and plant geography. The Universe, Hong's masterpiece, solved three major problems in modern geography: ① that the earth is a unified whole and human beings are a part of nature; (2) mainly discuss the differences of interrelated phenomena in different regions of the surface; ③ When studying specific natural elements, we should pay attention to their relationship with the surrounding environment.
Ritter, who teaches at the University of Berlin, is the first German geography professor and the founder of the Berlin Geographical Society. His famous saying is that "land affects human beings, and human beings also affect land", and he is considered as the earliest interpreter of the relationship between man and land in modern geography and the founder of human geography. His groundbreaking views on regions are concentrated in the 19-volume General Theory of Geosciences, which defines the concept and hierarchy of regions. He also thinks that the basic concept of geography is consistency in difference, which leads to two basic parts of this discipline: system of geography and regional geography.
Hong and Li Er created a new situation in geography in terms of geography and humanities respectively, and both attached importance to regional analysis. However, the former focuses on the geographical combination of natural elements on the surface, including their influence on human phenomena, while the latter thinks that people are the apex of geographical research. (end of 19th century ~ 195s) German F.von Richthofen divided the earth's surface into four circles (lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere) at the end of 19th century, and thought that geography was a science to study the earth's surface and its related things and phenomena. At the beginning of the 2th century, Sweden's S. de Yale enriched Lee's content about the earth's surface, and thought it was an overlapping zone of five circles: lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere and human sphere. In this way, the definition of geography is concrete.
Modern geography began to develop as a basic natural science after geology and anthropology. In the 19th century, the internal surveys in Asia and Africa, the American expedition to the west, the coastal development in Australia and the exploration in the South and the Arctic all accumulated a large number of first-hand materials for geography, and combined with the progress of surveying and mapping technology, a number of more accurate national and world maps or atlases appeared. From the end of last century to the beginning of this century, a large number of universities in western developed countries set up geography departments, and geography began to become a professional field. With the further development of geography, there has been a division of disciplines. After the independent development of meteorology, oceanography and pedology, some geographers emphasized the direction of the region or landscape, while others carried out the humanistic movement, which made the humanistic branch of geography flourish. After 193s, geography gradually changed to participate in economic work, and applied geography in the west and construction geography in the Soviet Union came into being.
Modern geography has made many achievements in its development, and formed three traditions and three schools. The early modern geography of the School of Ecological Tradition and Environment regarded people as a factor on the earth's surface from the ecological point of view, and the representative figure was German F. Laczer. Laplace's "Human Geography" expounds the role of geographical environment in human distribution and migration; Political Geography is a supplement to the previous work, in which the biological concept of "living space" is applied to the country under the influence of social Darwinism. At the beginning of the 2th century, Ms. E.C. semple, a Laplace student and an American, systematically expounded the dominant role of environment in human beings. Another American geographer, E. Huntington, wrote Civilization and Climate and Human Geography, detailing climate determinism.
in the first p>2 years of the 2th century, European and American countries doubted and denied environmental determinism, and the theory of possibility and ecological adjustment related to man and land came into being. Its main representative figures are French P. Vidal-Brandt and his disciple J. Bruner. Vichy believes that the task of geography is to explain the spatial relationship between natural and human conditions; Bai's point of view is more clear, saying: "Although the environment is enough to affect human activities, human beings also have the ability to manipulate and conquer the environment." The propagandist of ecological regulation theory is H.H. Barros of the United States. He thinks that geography should be humanized and become human ecology, and it is the pioneer of geography participating in practical work with ecological methods. Since the western countries criticized the determinism of geographical environment after the 192s, the Soviet Union after the 193s, and China after the 195s, the determinism of environmentalism was stopped in the middle of the 2th century.
Description tradition and regional school record and describe the distribution of various phenomena on the surface, which is the oldest tradition in geography. Therefore, the earth's surface must be divided into regions according to the hierarchical sequence. The initiator of the regional school of modern geography is German A. Hertner, and the successor is American R. Hartshorne. At the beginning of the 2th century, Richthofen and his disciple Hertner proposed that the core of geography should be regional research. According to Hershey's viewpoint, Hartshorne wrote two monographs, Nature of Geography and Perspective of Geographical Nature, in the late 193s and 195s, respectively, holding that geography studies the regional differentiation characteristics of the earth's surface, with departmental geography as the starting point and regional geography as the end. But in the end, because it only discusses the mechanism of replacing the surface with regional comprehensive, the effect is quite unsatisfactory. However, with the advocacy of Hershey and Hare, especially the efforts of French E. de Madong, A. De Manrong, American D.S. whittlesey and P.E. James, a golden age of regional geography appeared in the west in the middle of the 2th century.
The regional geography of the Soviet Union is not only influenced by the West, mainly Germany, but also has its own traditions. In the early 193s, a regional school of economic geography headed by н н Baranski and H.H. Kolosovski was formed.
In order to deepen the study of diverse phenomena on the earth's surface, the landscape school, which divides the earth's surface types from the viewpoint of genesis and uses comprehensive methods, appeared to make up for the shortcomings of the environmental school and the regional school. Landscape has the meaning of the synthesis of visible scenes on the surface and a specific area. German O. ruutel put forward the theory of landscape at the end of 19th century and the beginning of 2th century, arguing that the center of geography is the study of visible landscape, and landscape is an appearance unit of regional combination, in which "sensible" natural and human phenomena with regional significance form a unique combination. S Passarge, a contemporary German, believed that landscape is a regional type, that is, a collection of surface-related elements, and the determination of its boundaries is the most important, and the best symbol of division is vegetation. After that, the landscape geographical belt of лсс Berger in the Soviet Union was formed under the influence of Paavo's thought.
in the mid-192s, American C.O. Saul published a famous paper, The Form of Landscape, which regarded landscape as the basic unit of the surface. He believes that landscape consists of two parts: natural landscape, that is, the original landscape of a region before people enter; Cultural landscape is the landscape that has been transformed by people. Saul and many of his disciples studied a large number of examples of landscape changes and revealed the role of human beings in changing the face of the earth, which dwarfed the theory of environmentalism and the program of regionalism at that time.
For a long period of time, the geographical circles in the Soviet Union did not recognize the existence of cultural landscape, so the landscape school in economic geography could only be transformed, which is the theory of regional production complex put forward by Kolosovski after the 193s. This theory has played and is playing a great role in the regional development and economic division of the Soviet Union. In the early 196s, ва Anuchin tried to combine the ecological, regional and landscape viewpoints of geography in his theoretical works, and established the existence of unified geography from the comprehensive study of regional complexes, especially regions. This conforms to the unified tradition of geography and adapts to the trend of horizontal development of disciplines after the 196 s, so it has finally attracted the attention of geography circles.
other achievements modern geography has made many great achievements in its development. For example, M.F. Murray of the United States put forward the first atmospheric circulation model in the mid-19th century and published the first book of modern oceanography, Marine Physical Geography (1855). Dokuchaev, Russia, put forward the theory of soil zonality and natural zone in the late 19th century. American W.M. Davis put forward the theory of erosion cycle at the end of 19th century. German W.P. Ke Ben put forward climate classification and continental climate model from the beginning of 2th century to 193s. British H.J. Mackinder introduced the geopolitical theory of "heartland theory" in 194 and 1919 respectively. British A.J. herbertson completed the world natural division; German W. Christalle put forward the central theory in 193s. мии Budko of the Soviet Union published "Ground Surface Heat Balance" in 1956, etc.
The appearance of modern geography in China is nearly a century later than that in western countries, and there are also many achievements. For example, Zhang Xiangwen's masterpiece Geo-Literature (198) combines the inorganic and organic fields on the earth's surface, which is one year earlier than the similar works of French Ma Dong, and the book also divides the whole country into 18 geo-cultural areas; Zhu Kezhen's Operation of China Airflow (1933) and Southeast Monsoon and Rainfall in China (1934) reveal the regularity of pressure field, monsoon, precipitation and their relationship in China. In 1934, Ding Wenjiang, Weng Wenhao and Ceng Shiying compiled the New Map of the Republic of China, which is the first China Atlas in China that uses layered colored contours to represent the terrain.