How can geography affect culture

For example, in North Africa, there are many mosques and houses built using the Arabic architecture. Therefore, the accessibility of these nations influenced their cultural practices, which are present up to date, through the oceans surrounding Africa. The majority of African countries consist of a terrain that has many mountains.

As a result, the communities residing in those regions have cultural beliefs that their gods abode in the mountains. For example, citizens of Kenya believe that their god resides in Mount Kenya making them pray to their gods when facing this mountain.

The physical occurrence of the mountain had a great impact on the cultural practices and beliefs. Such communities also treat these mountains as sacred places. Japan is a small country in Asia. It seems even smaller when one understands that very little part of the land is useful for agriculture or house building.

Japan comprises of four major islands covered with mountains and forests, and crisscrossed by short fast-flowing rivers. Only a few of the rivers are fit for navigation. The physical geography of Japan influenced a lot on the social practices of the Japanese people. Due to the unfavorable topography, the population and the agricultural areas are concentrated together. Most of the Japanese live together in these suitable areas and share a majority of cultural practices such as the oversized sumo wrestlers battling it out in the ring or kimono-clad women walking without lifting their legs in street with sunshades above.

In addition, due to the lack of vast agriculturally viable land, Japan was able to industrialize easily since its citizens viewed industries as alternative economic activity. This had a great impact on their culture that influenced greatly their ways of eating and diets.

Japanese are also, very active and work for many hours a day. Consequently, this affects their social life, making majority of them have a lonely lifestyle and a career-based life without participation in the cultural practices of the communities.

This change of lifestyle and cultural engagement are attributed to the development of industries, which are in turn attributed to the physical geography of Japan that favored industrialization Varley As per the discussion above, it is clear that the physical geography influences culture since the ingredients of culture, in most cases, primarily involve demographics of the geographical location.

Therefore, it is apparent that the culture of the various communities and countries in the world can be attributed to where they are located on the map and the peculiar physical geography in that particular place. These cultural practices are unique to these countries and to the communities that endear them.

Order Now More about Our Guarantees. How Can Geography Affect Culture? Type of your assignment. Title of your paper. Academic Level. Order: Select the type of assignment. Provide explicit guidelines. Enjoy your free time while our professionals work on your project. Get an original work. Prev Post all Post Next Post. Overall, not bad. The study of human interaction with the land is called "cultural geography," and it includes economics, migrations, religion and language.

Topography is the study of reliefs; it describes the heights and shapes of geographical elements such as:. Natural barriers such as mountain ranges, oceans and large deserts limit human travel and isolate populations, thus restricting cultural exchanges.

Island nations, such as Japan, were long isolated from other cultures. This fostered the development of rich, unique cultures. Mountains and rocky plateaus reduce the amount of land available for agriculture, while level grasslands offer rich soils for raising crops. This affects the extent that agriculture can spread in a country. Large bodies of water restricted access to other cultures until humans devised ships capable of sailing over large distances. After that, coastal areas became hubs of cultural exchange.

Some examples of countries that utilized ships to spread their culture include the colonizing European nations of Great Britain, Spain and Portugal in the s and s. Also, rivers make good "highways" for travel and cultural exchange; however, if rivers are swift and hard to navigate, they can isolate populations.

The type of work people do is often dependent on geography. One cannot fish in the sea unless he is near it. If we live in a swamp, we cannot grow wheat. Likewise, we cannot mine for coal if there are no coal mines in the area or be Sherpas with no mountains. You get the picture, right? Today, a lot of people have jobs that they can do in most parts of the world, but geography still has a substantial impact on many.

A lot of us don't give much thought to how their place of residence impacts their culture. But, a branch of geography known as cultural geography studies the cultural components and the way they relate to the geography of the places where we live and travel. Civilizations that were once out of sight for the rest of the world can nowadays be studied and acknowledged by the rest of the world.

Individuals that study cultural geography understand and aim to explain the close link between cultures and the physical geography of the surroundings in which those cultures develop. At the outset, specific cultures develop under the influence of their physical landscape. In due course, those cultures employ their own influence on their surroundings. Even though you might have never previously thought about it, the culture you relate to has been developed and molded by the physical features of the landscape in which you live.

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See privacy policy Got it! Log In. How does geography affect the way we live? Published by sintellyapp. Jul 14, Published in. Different types of human settlements in different surroundings Also, the way people build their homes varies depending on their geographical region. How does geography affect the way we live our daily lives?