Geographers study human society and the natural environment and there are two categories of geography, first is Physical Geography where geographers study the natural environment and the second is Human Geography where Famous Geographers study human societies.
Geography is the study of Earth-like migration patterns, natural ecosystems, physical features, etc. All the Famous Geographers who have played a crucial role in the development of the world are not known by people when the world was still unexplored and exotic all these Geographers occupied an important role in society.
Geographers study the effects on the natural environment by human society and how on the other side how the natural environment influences human society. So, today we will see some of the famous Geographers.
Claudius Ptolemy
From the time of the ancient Roman Empire, Claudius Ptolemy was a Famous Geographers one of the most important works for which Ptolemy is known for in Geography was the map projects and the difficulty in mapping. He lived from the years 100 to 170 AD.
Ptolemy coordinated more than 8000 locations all over the world at a time where this type of activity was rare and even educated personalities didn’t know much about it. He also invented the idea of creating longitudes and latitudes in degrees and set it up on the world map.
More than 15 books have been written by Ptolemy some of them were:
- Geography by Ptolemy
- Ptolemy’s Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters
- Ancient India, as described by Ptolemy
- The Criterion of Truth
- Almagest
With that, he was also a great mathematician and an astronomer and at the age of 70 years, he died.
Hipparchus
Hipparchus from Nicaea was a Greek Famous Geographer who introduced the way of calculating the value of Earth by using the method of celestial observation. Hipparchus was very sensitive about the geographical work of Eratosthenes and also tried finding out the location of different places on the surface of the Earth.
Hipparchus’s biggest contribution was by discovering a method by using the dates observed of two equinoxes and also a solstice to try and calculate and find the size and direction of the displacement of the Sun’s orbit.
The most famous books of Hipparchus are The Geographical Fragments and On Sizes and Distances.
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Greek Geographers
At last but the most important Geographer this man was the person who coined Geography. Eratosthenes came up with this word from the roots of ‘geo’ which means the Earth and ‘graph’ which means to write isn’t this cool? His greatest contribution was the concepts of latitudes and longitudes.
Eratosthenes was a Greek Famous Geographers, the first person who calculated the circumference of the Earth and axial tilt of Earth, that’s why is also called the father of Geography. In 276-195 BC he also produced the work on the earliest maps of the world one of his major contributions was the sketching of the route of the Nile to Khartoum which was quite accurate.
Eratosthenes one of the true suggestions was that the lakes were the sources of the rivers. For all of his scholarly abilities, his devotees named him Pantathlos and was also a chief librarian at the library of Alexandria.
Even if we don’t see all of his remarkable works and accomplishments, Eratosthenes will still be remembered as he was the first person who coined Geography.
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- Diophantus of Alexandria was an Alexandrian mathematician
- Edmond Halley : Founder of the Halley’s Comet
Conclusion
All of these Famous Geographers had a curiosity about the world and all the people around and many geographers were explorers and philosophers as well.
All these people have helped us shape our understanding of how the natural environment influences human history starting from the areas people started to settle to the initiation of trading and cultural exchange routes and the development of culture worldwide.
Hope the article was helpful and informative. If you have any queries you can comment I’ll surely answer. Thank You!
