What is the economic and social geography of the world. Economic and social geography of the world. Physical geography and landscape science

22.11.2021

I came across the term socio-economic geography at an economic university. Reading a section with such a boring and uninteresting title seems like a boring pastime, so I just decided not to delve into the topic. It was lucky that during the exam on the world economy this question did not come across. Interest in socio-economic geography woke up in me (however ridiculous) while watching videos on the Internet.

What is socio-economic geography

Socio-economic geography studies society, its territorial organization in relation to the economy, politics, culture and structure. She studies many areas that are associated with her, even military geography and transport geography.

Socio-economic geography originated as the geography of the economy, and then gradually expanded. Studying socio-economic geography, you can understand why some industries are more developed in some countries than others, or find out how the number of inhabitants in a country affects the environment and social psychology.

Where to study socio-economic geography

Not every University goes deep into the study and research of this topic. It is understandable, because this is a purely scientific specialty. It is hard to find a job outside the university after studying socio-economic geography. But if you are not particularly interested in career and money (you just want to learn more about the world, and you are interested in such a topic), then feel free to opt for higher education institutions that specialize in this area. Here are some universities in Russia that are excellent at teaching socio-economic geography:

Institute of Geography RAS;
Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University;
Pacific Institute of Geography FEB RAS;
Institute of Earth Sciences, St. Petersburg State University.

Alternatively, you can enter an ordinary university at the Faculty of Economics or Geography, they will definitely tell you about it, but not in such detail. Some universities only read certain areas of this system of sciences. For example, the geography of industry or the geography of the population.

Socio-economic geography is the science of the territorial organization of society, the formation and development of territorial socio-economic systems (TSES).

object studies of socio-economic geography are complex territorial socio-economic systems, their subsystems, structural formations and elements (Fig. 1). The object of science includes territorial complexes of productive forces in their unity with natural conditions and resources, population and a specific mode of production. The subsystems and elements of the TSES are such objects of research as the population, the economy and its various industries, natural conditions and resources, territorial production complexes, economic regions, settlements, their networks and systems, agglomerations and nodes, transport systems, other territorial combinations. .

Thus, socio-economic geography combines
simultaneously elements of geography, economics and sociology. Being a science
geographical, it uses general geographic approaches and methods in research and works in close contact with natural history disciplines. Being a social science, it uses economic and sociological approaches and methods in research and works in close contact with the social sciences, which have a common object of study with it.

Main goal socio-economic geography - the study of socio-economic processes and phenomena in their territorial terms. From this follow main tasks research:

· study of patterns of formation, development and placement of TSES;

· assessment of conditions and factors influencing the development and placement of TSES, their subsystems and elements;

· identification of interrelations between the geographical environment, production and resettlement;

scientifically substantiated zoning of the territory;

· development of proposals for optimizing and improving the efficiency of the functioning of individual elements of the TSES;

· study of population problems, formation of an optimal system of settlements and rational use of labor resources;

· study of ecistic conditions (settlement conditions) and determination of measures for their improvement and equalization in the territorial plan;

· study of geographical differences in the conditions, level and nature of the life of the population, substantiation of measures for the convergence of socio-economic parameters in various types of settlements and regions of the country;

development of scientific foundations for the spatial organization of the life of a socialist society for the purposes of planning and design.
study of the environmental impact of production and settlement on the natural environment.

Geography is currently undergoing profound structural changes, especially its social, socio-economic branches. The object of its study is expanding and supplemented by economic, social and environmental areas. Questions of economic zoning, the formation of industrial hubs, territorial-industrial and agro-industrial complexes constitute the main direction of the work of economic geographers. In this regard, within the framework of geography, such areas as the geography of the population, the geography of the service sector, the geography of tourism and recreation, medical geography, etc. began to develop rapidly.

The need to assess the relationships in the system "society - production - environment" led to the greening of modern socio-economic geography. Hence, new areas of research follow: control over changes in the natural environment caused by human activities; scientific geographic projections of the consequences of this impact; prevention, mitigation and elimination of natural disasters; optimization of the environment in natural-technogenic systems.

The subject of economic and social geography of the world

Geography today is a whole system of sciences about the features of nature, the geographical shell of the Earth, the distribution of the population and its economic activity.

Based on what is the object of study, geography is usually divided into physical geography, economic and social geography.

Each of these geographical sciences consists of separate disciplines.

The term “economic geography” itself was proposed by M. V. Lomonosov in 1760. Later, prominent Russian geographers N. N. Baransky, Yu. G. Saushkin, N. N. Kolosovsky, A. A. Grigoriev took part in the development of science other.

Economic and social geography is engaged in the study of the patterns of distribution both on the territory of the planet as a whole and in individual countries and regions, population and economy.

Economic and social geography has specific objects of study, which are sectors of the economy that develop in certain socio-economic conditions, the population, and natural resources. All these objects are studied from the point of view of their territorial organization.

Remark 1

From this we can say that the subject of economic and social geography is the processes of formation of the territorial organization of the economy in different countries, the features and patterns of its development and management.

These objects, only from a different angle, are studied by other sciences. For example, statistics deals with the study of the economy and its branches, demography and ethnography are engaged in a more detailed study of the population, natural resources and conditions are the subject of study of physical geography, geology, and hydrology. Thus, all these sciences have a common object of study.

Regional studies is a branch of economic and social geography, and together they represent a social geographical science that combines geographical, sociological, and economic elements.

Being a traditional geographical discipline, country studies is engaged in a comprehensive study of individual countries and regions of the planet.

Also, economic and social geography is engaged in the study of specific objects - these are territorial production complexes, economic regions, urban agglomerations.

Economic and social geography has a characteristic feature inherent in it - it is a connection with the practice of economic construction. The bottom line is that it helps the economy in matters of scientifically based use of natural resources, protection and reproduction of these resources, transformation and management of the environment.

Economic and social geography provides assistance in questions of the rational distribution of industrial and agricultural production, in matters of creating an optimal transport system that ensures a more expedient geographical division of labor.

Economic and social geography makes a great contribution to the practice of urban planning, to the creation of settlement systems, thus participating in increasing the economic efficiency of the economy.

Remark 2

Economic and social geography has turned into a constructive science and has become the direct productive force of society.

The main tasks of economic and social geography

Any socio-economic system is considered by economic and social geography as a consequence of the economic activity of people, closely related to natural conditions and resources.

In general, the socio-economic system is a world economy, consisting of the economies of individual countries and regions.

The basic basis of the economy of a country or region is labor and natural resources.

The specialized and auxiliary branches of the economy, together with their transport arteries, rely on this basic foundation.

Economic and social geography realizes its purpose through historical, territorial, systemic, typological research methods.

Like any other science, economic and social geography sets itself tasks and solves them:

conducts the development of scientific foundations for the rational spatial organization of society, production, settlement, social areas, nature management;
reveals those laws according to which the political map of the world is being formed;
analyzes the distribution of natural resources of the world, as well as the degree of their use in the economy;
develops the geographical foundations of management, the scientific theory of forecasting;
analyzes the composition, distribution, growth dynamics of the world's population;
investigates and assesses the impact of scientific and technological progress on the world economy;
conducts educational propaganda work on the development of public economic and environmental thinking of people;
deals with the study of the features of the formation of various sectors of the world economy and their properties;
evaluates the place and role of individual Asian and European countries and regions in the world economy;
deals with the analysis of natural resources, population and economy of individual African regions and the whole continent;
analyzes the economic and geographical development of the countries of North and South America, as well as Australia and Oceania.

Remark 3

The tasks facing the economic and social geography of the world emphasize its versatility and complexity. Knowledge of its laws enables each person to navigate the events and evaluate them correctly.

The world economy, its composition and structure

The scientific and technological revolution had a great impact on the structure of the world economy, and experts distinguish three levels of industries in it:

macrostructure;
mesostructure;
microstructure.

Large economic proportions are reflected by the macrostructure - the proportions between the production and non-production spheres, the proportions between industry, construction, agriculture, and transport.

Based on these proportions, the type of country is determined - agrarian, industrial, post-industrial.

The formation of the post-industrial structure began to take shape under the influence of the scientific and technological revolution. Its characteristic feature is the change in the proportions between the production and non-production spheres.

In the developed countries of the world, the number of people employed in the non-material sphere - the service sector, science, education, culture, exceeds the number of people employed in the production sector.

In the structure of material production, the scientific and technological revolution caused great progressive shifts, which manifested themselves in the fact that there was a change in the relationship between industry and agriculture.

The growth of labor productivity in all spheres of the economy depends on how developed industry is.

The mesostructure reflects the main proportions that take shape within industry, within agriculture, within transport, etc. Changes in the structure of industry occur much faster than in the structure of agriculture.

Nevertheless, the share of animal husbandry is growing noticeably, the role of industrial and fodder crops, vegetables and fruits in crop production is increasing.

As for the microindustry structure, it reflects the shifts that are taking place in certain types, primarily industrial production.

In this area, the latest science-intensive types of mechanical engineering and the chemical industry, the production of electronic computers, aerospace, laser technology, equipment for nuclear energy, etc., come to the fore today.

Lesson summary

Lesson topic: The subject of socio-economic geography of the world. Methods of economic and geographical research.

The purpose of the lesson:

educational: to form in students a general idea of the subject and task of the socio-economic geography of the world, to expand knowledge about the methods of economic and geographical research;

developing: to develop interest in studying the topic;

educational - to cultivate an understanding of the importance of studying geography, curiosity and a local history approach.

Equipment: atlas, textbook, notebook.

Lesson type: learning lesson.

Lesson form: standard.

During the classes

I. Organizing time.

Greeting students. Checking on the desks of equipment and training materials.

ІІ. The message of the topic, the purpose of the tasks of the lesson and the motivation of educational activities.

The relevance of the course of socio-economic geography of the world has grown significantly due to the great changes that have occurred in society over the past decades. This is a social science that studies the population and its economic activity, as well as the economy of individual regions, countries of the world as a whole. Thus, the main task of the course is to learn certain aspects of the life of society and the economy in order to know how to improve it.

ІІІ. Learning new material.

SUBJECT AND OBJECTIVES OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY.

The subject of study of the socio-economic geography of the world is the features and patterns of the spatial (territorial) organization of society as part of the geographic envelope of the Earth. The main objectives of this course:

get an idea of the modern political map of the world;

to teach to distinguish the states of the world according to the form of government, territorial-administrative structure and level of development;

get acquainted with the patterns in the distribution of world natural resources, learn how to assess the resource endowment of the world and individual countries;

consider the global problems of mankind and possible ways to solve them;

consider global problems and possible solutions;

identify and study the most characteristic features of the population and economy of the world and individual countries;

show the role of regions and largest countries in the world economy.

Exploring a certain space, socio-economic geography uses knowledge of physical geography. This allows a comprehensive study of regions and countries, establishing the relationship between their natural and socio-economic objects. This is where the principle of the unity of the system of geographical sciences appears.

The territorial organization of society is the spatial organization of people's lives, which includes the location of the population and economy, as well as their spatial combinations, associations with certain laws in a certain territory.

RESEARCH METHODS OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY.

As a scientific discipline, socio-economic geography is very complex. After all, it is based on natural, economic, social and political concepts and facts. Therefore, the range of methods used in social geographical research is very wide, it includes both general scientific and sectoral methods.

Among the general scientific methods of socio-geographical research, observations of news and facts, their description and explanation with the help of analysis are traditionally used. Separately, there is a method for analyzing analog objects, which are used in cases where the studied objects are similar (similar) and when there is reliable knowledge about one of them. In this case, the main results of the already investigated object are transferred to all other similar objects. The long-standing comparative-geographical method is also successfully used, separately in spatial studies of political-geographical phenomena and processes.

A prominent place among general scientific methods belongs to the historical method, which makes it possible to learn the dynamics and trends of socio-economic development.

In social geography, they also use the general scientific balance method, when they make up certain components, determine the similarity between them. For example, they often consider balances of natural resources, population and labor resources, fuel, electricity, food, cargo flows, production and consumption, etc. There is a more special method of intersectoral balances, which analyze the movement or other resources between industries and between regions. Such studies, where there are numerical indicators, require mathematical methods of data processing.

To obtain operational data, airborne methods, space methods with computer decoding of the information received are often used.

The cartographic method, which has long been considered traditional in geography, has now received a new impetus for development thanks to GIS technologies. After all, now reading and analyzing cards can be used in automatic modes. In addition, for socio-economic geography, which is often based on dynamic characteristics, the hourly dependence of GIS is very important. After all, unlike a conventional geographical map, a GIS is an active multifunctional database that can be constantly supplemented and updated.

SOURCES OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.

Throughout your years of studying geography, you have used different maps. You know that they contain ten times more information than text. Important sources of geographical knowledge are encyclopedias, geographical dictionaries and other scientific and popular science literature. The computer also provides great opportunities. With it, you can work with electronic textbooks, maps and atlases.

What are the advantages of electronic textbooks over regular ones?

Geography needs an outlet to the world space.

HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS OF THE WORLD.

Socio-economic geography invites you to get acquainted with the making of the world into historical and geographical regions.

Europe: Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe.

Asia: Southwest Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, North Asia.

Africa: North Africa, Tropical and South Africa.

America: Anglo-America, Latin America.

Australia and Oceania.

IV. Consolidation of the studied material.

Give answers to questions.

1. Define the socio-economic geography of the world.

2. Expand the essence of the concept of "territorial organization of society."

3. Name the tasks of socio-economic geography.

4. What sources of geographical knowledge do you know?

V. Generalization and systematization of knowledge.

Exercise 1.

Modern socio-economic geography can be viewed as a group of sciences that includes the geography of population, industry, agriculture, transport, services, culture, political geography. Build a diagram in your notebook that will display socio-economic geography as a group of sciences.

Task 2.

Blitz poll.

1. What does social geography study?

2. What does economic geography study?

3. List what methods of studying geography do you know?

4. Explain how you understand "historical and geographical region"?

5. Name the reasons for the formation of historical and geographical regions.

Task 3.

Using the map of the atlas "Historical and geographical regions of the world", determine which European subregion Ukraine belongs to.

Problem task.

The boundaries of the parts of the world are drawn rather conditionally. Thus, in the latest editions of class 10 atlases, a part of the island of New Guinea, which was traditionally considered part of Australia and Oceania, is assigned to Asia. This approach is probably not entirely consistent. Since if we are guided solely by drawing the boundaries of regions along the borders of states, then the Hawaiian Islands should be attributed not to Oceania, but to America (this is the territory of the United States). But with this approach, the borders between Europe and Asia may cause the most questions. Give examples of countries whose territory is located in two parts of the world, and offer your approach to whether they belong to Europe or Asia.

Table 1

Countries located in two parts of the world.

The country	part of the world

VI. Summary of the lesson.

Microphone reception

Children, in five sentences, what did you like about the lesson?

VIII. Homework.

Geography is the science of the nature of the earth's surface, of the population and its economic activities. Geographical science can be divided into two large sections: physical geography on the one hand and socio-economic geography on the other.

Physiography

The objects of study of physical geography are the geographic shell of the Earth, soil science, climatology, glaciology, which studies ice, oceanology and hydrology, as well as paleogeography, which studies the past of the geographic shell. Physical geography studies the climate and relief of the countries of the world, their location on the continents.

In recent years, interest has been shown in such a discipline of physical geography as urban studies. Urban studies is the science of cities, the interaction of urban systems with each other and with a person.

Rice. 1. New York is a huge metropolis.

Physical geography is studied from the 6th grade of the school, and social and economic, as a more complex branch of science, take place in the 10th-11th grade.

Physical geography in its infancy originated in the 4th century BC. But only centuries later, after the major sea expeditions of Columbus, Polo, Magellan, mankind realized how important it is to study and comprehend the world around us.

Rice. 2. F. Magellan.

Social and economic geography

Social and economic geography is often combined into one large section - socio-economic geography. Social geography studies society, the life and interaction of people in it. Economic geography studies the economic life of society, its place in the world economy. But at the center of any society is a person, so two branches of one science have merged into one.

What have we learned?

Physical, economic and social geography are important branches of one science. Social and economic geography are often combined into one branch, and they are considered as disciplines that depend on each other.

Topic quiz

Report Evaluation

Average rating: 4.2. Total ratings received: 100.