- Perspectives of geographic space
- List of the components of the geographic space and their characteristics
- Natural component
- Social component
- Political component
- Economic component
- Cultural component
- How the components of geographic space are related
- References
The components of geographic space refer to all those elements around which society is organized from a spatial point of view. The experts identify five components of the geographic space: natural, social, cultural, economic and political.
The geographic space and each of its components have the following characteristics: they can be identified in a spatial and physical unit, it is locatable according to geographic coordinates, it has parts and it can be divided or separated. Among others of its qualities are the dynamism in which they live, in addition to having an extension that can be quantified.
Geographic space is studied especially by human geography. Source: Pixabay
The importance of geographic space lies in the influence it can exert on human beings and their behavior, either as an individual or as a group. It is for this reason that different schools of geography, especially human geography, study it and integrate it in their analyzes.
Perspectives of geographic space
The geographical space can be divided into two types, according to the degree of participation of man or the impact it has on him. For this reason, a distinction is usually made between intervened and non-intervened geographic spaces.
The first are those that have resulted only from the actions of the human being, so it is an indispensable factor for it to originate. The latter are alien to the activities of man, so their origin is independent of their actions or their presence.
The experts also handle two great points of view of the geographical space, such as the geographical location or the community that lives there. These two perspectives known, respectively, as locational or ecological, give rise to three ways of studying the geographic space: through spatial analysis, landscape analysis or ecological-environmental analysis.
List of the components of the geographic space and their characteristics
Original text
The geographical space, as indicated above, is made up of 5 components, which are: natural, social, political, economic and cultural.
Natural component
It is made up of all those elements of nature that affect the geographical space with or without human presence and that have evolved since the origins of the planet. Their fusion results in the world's landscape diversity. They are also co-participants in natural phenomena.
Examples of the natural component can be mentioned as natural resources such as water, wind, land, sunlight, phenomena such as climate and reliefs. Everything that is part of the fauna and flora is also usually included.
Social component
When speaking of the social component within the topic geographic space, reference is made to all the factors that influence or are part of the human distribution within planet Earth. They are all those activities and dynamics by which the communities were created, differentiated themselves and have achieved their coexistence.
Migration, the composition of a locality, rural and urban distribution, housing density, population growth, religion, nationalities, are some examples of the social component.
Political component
This component includes all aspects of administration and organization that a community, located in a specific area, requires to function as a civic unit.
All the historical conditions and the agreements that men have established to conform to countries, respect certain artificial borders and govern in a certain way, are part of this component.
Government policies, border boundaries, laws, national territories, regulations, treaties, and international agreements are also examples of the political component.
Economic component
It refers to those tasks that are developed to satisfy human needs, and that are necessarily related to the exploitation and transformation of natural resources, as well as the distribution of their products.
Beyond the commercialization of goods, the economic component also includes all activities that involve the provision of services. The particularity of this component is that it requires the fusion of the natural and social component.
Within the economic component, we can mention the socioeconomic conditions, infrastructures, cartels, organizations of countries around some economic activity, activities such as livestock, agriculture and mining. Also any type of services such as transport, telephony can be considered elements of the economic component.
Cultural component
It is the component that brings together everything that concerns the interaction and coexistence of a community, which occupies a specific region. It emerges from the ways of seeing the world, from the ways of doing and from the way of life of these inhabitants, which make them unique and different from the rest.
Heritage, cultural manifestations, lifestyles, dialects, gastronomy and traditions are emblematic examples of the cultural component.
How the components of geographic space are related
Livestock is part of the economic component. Source: Pixabay
The components of the geographic space are organized and function as an integrated system, so they are constantly interrelated. In addition, the modifications or alterations that some of them may suffer, usually affect the rest of the components and, therefore, the whole that would be the geographical space as such.
The interrelation between the social, economic, cultural, political and natural results in diversity and dynamism. There are many combinations between the internal processes of the 5 components and their forms of linkage.
Additionally, the intervention of man and his variety of actions generate a multiplying and cumulative effect, which gives it a unique and unrepeatable nature. Each geographic space is totally different from the others, in the same way as current societies.
The components of the geographic space are arranged spatially, so they can only be analyzed according to their location on the planet and under distribution units such as landscape, territory, place, environment, region.
These dynamic geospatial units are a valuable source of information. The geographical space allows evaluating resources or detecting new ones, describing potentialities, studying conflicts, analyzing the impact of certain factors and identifying environmental problems. All of this will serve as the basis for proposing certain management guidelines that favor the conditions of each geospatial unit studied.
References
- Ramírez, J. (2019, October 29). 10 Important Geographical Space Characteristics. Recovered from lifeder.com
- Examples of social, economic and natural component of the geographic space. (sf). Recovered from examples.co
- 14 characteristics of the Geographic Area. (2018, March 29). Recovered from 12caracteristicas.com
- Geographical space. (2020, January 24). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Recovered from es.wikipedia.org
- Geographical Space Concept. (sf) Recovered from concept.de