Chapter 1. What is Geography and the Skills of a Geographer FREE
When the city of Cape Town almost reached Day Zero in 2018, when its dam levels dropped so low that taps were nearly switched off, the crisis was not only about water. It was about rainfall patterns, where people had built their homes, how a growing population used a scarce resource, and how government managed the land. Untangling a problem like that is exactly what a geographer does. Geography is the subject that studies the Earth as the home of people, and it always asks two big questions: where something is, and why it is there. A farmer near Bloemfontein paying R350 for a bag of seed, a shack settlement on the Cape Flats, and a flood on the Jukskei River are all geography, because each one links people to place.
1.1 Defining geography and its main branches
Geography is the study of the spatial relationships between people and their environment, that is, how things are arranged across the surface of the Earth and how they affect one another. The subject has two main branches. Physical geography studies the natural environment, including weather and climate, landforms, rivers, soils and oceans. Human geography studies people and their activities, including population, settlements, farming, mining and trade. The two branches are never fully separate. The Vaal River (physical) supplies water to the factories of Gauteng (human), and the drought of the Karoo (physical) forces farm workers to move to the cities (human). Geographers also use environmental geography to study how people and nature affect each other, for example how mining on the Highveld pollutes the air and water.
1.2 Why geography matters in South Africa
South Africa is a country of sharp spatial contrasts, which makes geography especially useful here. Understanding geography helps us answer real questions: Why do millions of people live in informal settlements while land lies empty elsewhere? Why does the Western Cape get winter rainfall while Gauteng gets summer thunderstorms? How should the government spend a limited budget of rands on roads, clinics and water pipes? Geographers help plan cities, predict floods, protect farmland and manage resources such as the dams of the Drakensberg and the gold of the Witwatersrand.
1.3 The skills of a geographer
A geographer needs a toolkit of practical skills, and these run through the whole of Grade 10:
- Observing and describing landscapes, weather and human activity, in the field or from photographs.
- Map skills, that is reading and using maps to find places, measure and explain patterns.
- Collecting and recording data, such as measuring rainfall or counting traffic, then sorting it into tables.
- Interpreting data shown as graphs, diagrams, satellite images and statistics.
- Reasoning and explaining, linking causes to effects and writing clear answers.
These skills are useful far beyond the classroom. Town planners, weather forecasters, disaster managers and mining engineers all use them every day.
1.4 Maps and other sources of geographic information
The map is the most important tool of geography. A map is a drawing of part of the Earth, seen from above and drawn to scale. Geographers use many kinds of maps, including general atlas maps, weather maps, and the detailed topographic maps and orthophoto maps studied later in this strand. Besides maps, geographers gather information from aerial photographs (taken from aircraft), satellite images (taken from space), statistics from Statistics South Africa, and field measurements. Each source has a strength: a photograph shows real detail, while a map shows the same area in a clear, labelled form. Modern geographers store and combine these sources in a computer system, which is introduced fully in the chapter on GIS.
1.5 The geographic enquiry process
Geographers work in an orderly way called the geographic enquiry process. The steps are: (1) ask a geographic question, for example "Why does this township flood every summer?"; (2) collect information from maps, photographs and fieldwork; (3) organise the information into tables, graphs or sketch maps; (4) analyse and interpret it to find patterns and causes; and (5) draw a conclusion and suggest action. Following these steps turns a vague worry into a clear, evidence-based answer. Throughout Grade 10 you will practise this process again and again, whether you are studying a cyclone, a population pyramid or a mining town. Geography, in short, is the science of asking where and why, and then doing something useful with the answer.