Geography is that discipline that seeks to describe and interpret the variable character from place to place of the earth as the world of man. - Richard Hartshorne

Geography is not an infant subject, born out of the womb of American geology a few decades ago, which each new generation of American students may change around at will.

Numerous geographers writing in recent years concerning the nature and scope of their subject have described the relation of their field to other fields of science in terms of a concept said to stem from Immanuel Kant and from Alexander von Humboldt. Whatever may be the original source of the concept, its importance in the current geographic thought stems from the writing of , the German master of the methodology of geography.

Geography is concerned to provide accurate, orderly, and rational description and interpretation of the variable character of the earth surface.