Economic Geography

Economic Geography Economic geography is a sub-field within the larger subjects of geography and economics. Researchers within this field study the location, distribution, and organization of economic activity around the world. Economic geography is important in developed nations such as the United States because it allows researchers to understand the structure of the areas economy and its economic relationship with other areas around the world. It is also important in developing nations because the reasons and methods of development or lack thereof are more easily understood. Because economics is such a large topic of study so too is economic geography. Some topics that are considered economic geography include agritourism, the economic development of various countries and gross domestic and gross national products. Globalization is also extremely important to economic geographers today because it connects much of the worlds economy. History and Development of Economic Geography The field of economic geography continued to grow as European nations later began to explore and colonize different regions around the world. During these times European explorers made maps describing economic resources such as spices, gold, silver and tea that they believed would be found in places like the Americas, Asia and Africa (Wikipedia.org). They based their explorations on these maps and as a result, new economic activity was brought to those regions. In addition to the presence of these resources, explorers also documented the trading systems that the people native to these regions engaged in. In the mid-1800s farmer and economist, Johann Heinrich von Thà ¼nen developed his model of agricultural land use. This was an early example of modern economic geography because it explained the economic development of cities based on land use. In 1933 geographer Walter Christaller created his Central Place Theory that used economics and geography to explain the distribution, size, and number of cities around the world. By the end of World War II general geographic knowledge had increased considerably. Economic recovery and development following the war led to the growth of economic geography as an official discipline within geography because geographers and economists became interested in how and why economic activity and development was occurring and where it was around the world. Economic geography continued to grow in popularity throughout the 1950s and 1960s as geographers attempted to make the subject more quantitative. Today economic geography is still a very quantitative field that mainly focuses on topics such as the distribution of businesses, market research and regional and global development. In addition, both geographers and economists study the topic. Todays economic geography is also very reliant on geographic information systems (GIS) to conduct research on markets, the placement of businesses and the supply and demand of a given product for an area. Topics within Economic Geography Theoretical economic geography is the broadest of the branches and geographers within that subdivision mainly focus on building new theories for how the worlds economy is arranged. Regional economic geography looks at the economies of specific regions around the world. These geographers look at local development as well as the relationships that specific regions have with other areas. Historical economic geographers look at the historical development of an area to understand their economies. Behavioral economic geographers focus on an areas people and their decisions to study the economy. Critical economic geography is the final topic of study. It developed out of critical geography and geographers in this field attempt to study economic geography without using the traditional methods listed above. For example, critical economic geographers often look at economic inequalities and the dominance of one region over another and how that dominance impacts the development of economies. In addition to studying these different topics, economic geographers also often study very specific themes related to the economy. These themes include the geography of agriculture, transportation, natural resources, and trade as well as topics such as business geography. Current Research in Economic Geography Journal of Economic Geography Each of these articles is interesting because they are very different from one another but they all focus on some aspect of the worlds economy and how it works.