Geographical Space - Concept, types, characteristics and examples

We explain that it is a geographical space and what its components are, as well as characteristics, examples and how they are classified.

The geographical space includes natural and cultural aspects.

What is the geographical space?

In geography, geographical space is understood as the specific way in which a society is organized in the physical space it occupies; or to the physical space itself, once it has been organized by a specific society.

Said in simpler terms, this concept refers to the way in which societies interrelate with their environment , structured in various “landscapes”: natural, humanized, agricultural, industrial, urban, etc.It can be used as a synonym for territory.

In this way, when studying the geographical space of a society, we must refer to its economic, political, social and cultural organization ; elements that are usually represented in geography as a set of nodes, lines, areas or flows, according to what the spatial analysis stipulates.

Therefore, some dynamics are static and stable (such as land use), while other mobile and fluid (such as transport).

This concept is used in the different schools of geography , although more widely in human geography. Its logic is usually to start from the visible, to show the processes that gave rise to it and the dynamics that, present or absent, built the landscape that is observed.

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Types of geographical space

There is no specific typology of geographical spaces, since these can be of as many types as they have characteristics, however, it is usually distinguished, based on the degree of human participation in the formation of a particular space, between :

• Intervened geographical spaces .Those in which human activity of any kind has been indispensable for the construction of a geographical space, as is the case of cities.


• Geographical spaces not intervened .Those that are alien in their constitution to the activities of humanity, such as a desert, for example.

Characteristics of the geographical space

The geographical space is cumulative, that is, it contains traces of its own history.

The geographical space encompasses two fundamental perspectives:

• Location perspective : refers to the location, that is, the geographical location.


• Ecological perspective : refers to the beings that inhabit it.

Each one considered as a system in operation in space, thus allowing three different forms of study: spatial analysis, landscape analysis and ecological-environmental analysis.

On the other hand, the geographical space is cumulative, that is, it contains in itself the traces of its own history, which can be traced in its future in a way similar to how biologists do with the evolutionary process.strong> traces of previous societies modify the geographical space and make it unique, as well as the dynamics of current societies.

There is also the possibility that elements of different historical times overlap in the geographical space, say, medieval and modern, or industrial and post-industrial elements. This concept is being transformed by dynamics of the information society of the 21st century, to give rise to new forms of territoriality, such as digital.

Components of the geographical space

The following components are attributed to the geographical space:

• Natural .Those who obviously do not depend on the intrusion of human beings, but respond to nature.Mountains, valleys, lakes, seas, are examples of this.


• Social .Those that come, instead, from human activities that concern the dynamics of creation of a community, such as religious activities, nationalities, the States themselves, etc.


• Politicians .Those that derive from the way power is organizes in human society, that is to say, that respond to pacts, agreements or historical impositions, such as the delimitation of the nations of the planet, the socio-political organization of their territories, etc.


• Economics .Those who are the result of the many dynamics of production and consumption that humanity carries out to meet its own needs, such as capital flows, social classes, etc.


• Cultural .Those that come from the particular way of seeing the world that a human community preserves over generations, such as local traditions, language, gastronomy, etc.

Examples of geographical space

A geographical space can be an entire mountain range.

The concept of geographical space can be so broad that it is often complex to point out examples without falling into the obvious. A house can be a geographical space, as well as the city in which it is located, or the valley in which the city was built, or the entire mountain range of which this valley is part.

On a larger scale, you can also consider the geographical space the region of the country where the mountain range is located, or the entire country, or the continent where it is, or the globe completely.Everything will depend on the perspective and the specific interests of the moment.

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