Historical geography

Historical geography is a science that deals with the genesis of the material and immaterial human environment. She examines the processes, causes and boundary conditions of the relationship between space and time and reconstructs spatiotemporal structures. It is a sub-discipline of geography and is closely linked to the historical sciences both thematically and in terms of research . She conducts research in physical geography and human geography .

As a (historical) spatial science , historical geography deals with the relationship between humans and the natural environment in historical time and from a diachronic perspective. The central question is how individuals, collectives and societies influenced spatial structures through actions and practices in the past and how these spatial structures in turn have an effect on individuals, collectives and societies. In the course of constructivist research perspectives in the post-structuralist New Cultural Geography, Historical Geography is not only interested in the material conditions of space, but also deals with the social andcommunicative construction of spatial phenomena.

task

The task of historical geography is to record, describe and explain the quality and quantity of relevant economic, demographic , social, political and natural processes in spatiotemporal differentiation. Historical geography tries to reconstruct past landscape conditions and by comparing them to determine regularities in the formation of cultural landscapes .

Focus

The main focus lies in historical settlement research, in the geography of rural areas, in field and settlement naming, in desert research and field form research . One sub-area - which is more developed in the English-speaking area than in Germany - is urban morphology .

Another related scientific approach is genetic cultural landscape research , which aims to explain current spatial structures and processes from the past. Here, too, genetic settlement research is traditionally an important sub-discipline.

The Applied Historical Geography tries to integrate the insights of historical geography and cultural landscape Genetic research in today's planning and environmental education. One goal is the maintenance and further development of the historical heritage in the form of cultural landscape maintenance .

Historical geography is offered as a subject in Germany at the universities of Berlin, Bonn and Bamberg.

See also

• Stuttgart Colloquium on the Historical Geography of Antiquity
• Tabula Imperii Byzantini
• Gough card

literature

• Martin Born: Geography of the rural settlements . Volume 1. Stuttgart 1977.
• Klaus-Dieter Kleefeld, Peter Burggraaff (ed.): Perspectives of the historical geography. Bonn 1997.
• Hans Becker: General historical agricultural geography . Stuttgart 1998.
• Heinz Heineberg : Introduction to anthropogeography / human geography . 3. Edition. UTB / Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2007 (2003), ISBN 3-8252-2445-7 .
• Helmut Jäger : Historical Geography . Braunschweig 1969
• Helmut Jäger: Development Problems of European Cultural Landscapes . Darmstadt 1987.
• Helmut Jäger: Introduction to environmental history . Darmstadt 1994.
• Winfried Schenk: Historical geography. Environmental history bridging subject between history and geography. In: Wolfram Siemann (ed.): Environmental history. Topics and perspectives. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-40649-438-2 .
• Winfried Schenk: Historical geography. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-534-22847-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Andreas Dix, Winfried Schenk: Historical Geography . In: Hans Gebhardt, Rüdiger Glaser, Ulrich Radtke, Paul Reuber (eds.): Geography. Physical geography and human geography . 2nd Edition. Springer Spectrum, Heidelberg 2016, ISBN 978-3-662-50390-4 .