Father of Geography

Eratosthenes:

Eratosthenes is generally considered as the father of Geography. He was born in 276 BC. He is a great mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He worked as a chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria for his way of learning.

As we have already discussed, he is most famous for calculating the circumference of the Earth. His calculations at that time were most accurate. He has his extra work which literally made him most extra famous. He might accurately calculate the distance from the Earth and the Sun. He also invented a leap year.

He was born at Cyrene to Aglaos. Cyrene was founded in Greek centuries earlier. It is the capital of five cities Pentapolis in South Africa. Pentapolis means a country with five cities which are namely Cyrene, Arsinoe, Berenice, Ptolemias, and Apollonia.

Measuring the Earth's Circumference :

Without leaving Egypt, Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth. He carefully followed from the directions of the Sun and made a way to calculate the circumference. Let us know about the main five assumptions which were helpful to calculate the circumference. Of course, none of them were perfectly accurate. They are :

By assuming that the distance between Alexandria and Syene was 5000 stadia;
By assuming that Alexandria is due north to Syene
By assuming that Syene is on the Tropic of Cancer;
That the Earth is a perfect Sphere;
By assuming that light rays emanating from the Sun are parallel.

He also worked on inventing an algorithm to find prime numbers. He also worked on many topics like geography, mathematics, philosophy, chronology, grammar, poetry, and old comedies too. He died on 195/194 BC.

Spatial research is the study of natural and human phenomena. Area studies are the study of places and regions. Geography can often be considered as a bridge between the human and the physical sciences.

Physical Geography is a branch of geography which deals on geography as an earth science to understand the physical problems. This is also helpful in the understanding of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, and global spora.

This Physical geography can be subdivided into various branches as follows:

Biogeography
Climatology and meteorology
Coastal Geography
Environmental management
Geodesy
Geomorphology
Landscape Ecology

and many other sub-branches.

Human Geography is the part of geography which deals with the study of patterns and processes that shape the human society. This can be divided into broad categories as follows :