”Geography should give students knowledge of the world around them with respect to relations between mankind, natural environments, and human living conditions in different places and in different regions. These conditions in the world around us are analysed from a geographical and spatial point of view, giving the students facts about, explanations and understanding of, and insights into their own environment and those of other people, based on geographical concepts, methods and theories.”

− These are the opening lines of the latest curriculum for Geography in the Swedish upper- secondary school. It has always been difficult to provide a brief and comprehensible definition of geography as a subject. But geography seeks connections, patterns and conformity to rules among phenomena on the earth´s surface, and explanations of these phenomena. It attempts to answer questions like “Why this just here?” and “Why just this here?” The answers are not always to be found on the surface of the earth. They might be found deep down in the earth´s interior or high up in the atmosphere or even on the sun. As a science, geography is dependent for various kinds of problem-solving on co-operation with or knowledge of a wide range of special sciences in different disciplines.

Landscape is a central concept in all geographical science. `Landscape´ comprises all phenomena on the earth´s surface that are the subject of geographical analysis. One dominant phenomenon may characterise landscapes, for example, agricultural landscapes, urban landscapes, industrial landscapes, forest landscapes, mountain landscapes and so on. Sub-disciplines have developed in geography, such as geomorphology, glaciology, biogeography, medical geography, settlement geography, population geography, social geography and economic geography. Historical geography is devoted to research into the development of the landscape. Underlying them all is theoretical geography, which develops concepts, models of analysis and theories.

The word geography comes from Greek and means `earth description`. As with the other basic subjects of science, the old saying “Even the ancient Greeks” holds true for geography. One problem facing geographers is that the name of the subject is frequently connected with the question “Where is it?”, a sort of postman´s knowledge. Yet geography has existed both as a field of knowledge and as a science from the times of the ancient Greeks up to today´s various geosciences. The learned men of antiquity had collected detailed information about the world as it was known to them round the Mediterranean, but they also understood the spherical shape of the earth and its climatic zones, and had introduced the grid for determining the location of places and had calculated the circumference of the earth mathematically. This “pagan” ancient knowledge sank into oblivion during the Middle Ages, when a Christian picture of the world based on interpretations of the Bible spread through Christian Europe. But the Greek works were translated into Arabic at the Muslim world centres of learning between the 10^th and 13^th centuries. The Renaissance in Italy brought this knowledge back to Europe, where the most important work of ancient geography, Ptolemy's geography, was translated into Latin and published in 1477. Then followed one of the great periods in geographical research, the age of discoveries, when European states competed to “discover” and annex various parts of the world outside Europe. Thanks to these voyages of discovery, mapping flourished as never before. A steady stream of new maps of the world and atlases during the 16^th and 17^th centuries followed these discoveries. The Mediterranean countries, principally Italy, had dominated the publication of maps in the 16th century, but Holland took over that role with a large number of atlas publishing houses in Amsterdam in the 17^th century, when maps and atlases became magnificent status symbols for the leading lights in politics and the economy. Cartography and geography were like Siamese twins during this period, when the world´s countries and seas were mapped and classified. Alongside the atlases came a mighty stream of geographical descriptions of countries, which were given an increasingly structured form in the 18th century. This was encyclopaedic/topographical literature that was used in every kind of school and by every kind of traveller. This tradition lives on in today´s tourist guidebooks.

The development of geography into a modern science began in Germany during the first half of the 19^th century. The principal actors were Alexander von Humboldt, who demonstrated the regular patterns in the interplay between climate, topography, soil and vegetation by means of systematic field studies during long research travels; and Karl Ritter, who looked for regular patterns in mankind´s settlements, use of resources and culture on earth. Throughout the 19^th century and into the 20^th century research expeditions played a vital role in geography. It was a question of filling in the “blank spaces”, the unknown areas in the interior of Africa, South America and Asia, but also of gaining more detailed knowledge of already “discovered” parts of the earth´s surface. Geographical societies that were founded in many countries during the 19^th century played an important part in these expeditions.

During the 19th century, geography was established at more and more universities in the world and systematic studies of the boundlessly rich collections of observations gradually took over. At this stage geography was still dominated by a natural-science approach. Physical geography, primarily geomorphology (the science of land forms) and climatology, was also the theoretically most fully developed aspect of the subject. In his work Anthropogeographie, the first systematic human geography book, Friedrich Ratzel attempted in the late 19th century to explain the forms and distribution of settlements according to natural conditions. This is called environmental determinism and it soon proved to be untenable when studies of the history of settlements started.

In Sweden professorial chairs in geography were established at universities and university colleges early in the 20^th century. At an early stage, Swedish geography played a leading role in fields such as climate development and glaciology, hydrology, population and urban geography, and historical geography, especially the history of cultural landscapes. Geography developed both in the field of research and in schools, where it was at its strongest in the 1940s and 1950s. The upper-secondary schools were staffed with a corps of geography teachers with a doctor´s degree and high scientific competence. Recruitment to higher education in the subject was good, aimed at the teaching profession. To be a lector at an upper-secondary school was the aim of licentiate and doctoral studies, which at that time were the necessary qualifications for such posts. Swedish geography was sufficiently strong and had a good enough international reputation to be entrusted with the organisation of the World Congress of  the International Geographical Union (IGU) in Scandinavia in 1960.

A change came in the 1960s. At the universities (first at Uppsala in 1948) geography had been divided into two subjects, physical geography and human geography, belonging to two different faculties. In 1954 the subject was divided in the upper-secondary schools and its parts were allocated to two different subjects. Teacher training decreased dramatically and both subjects began to adapt to quite new professional areas. Now social scientists were recruited to human geography, which underwent strong scientific development towards social geography, with its own theoretical developments.

Social geography did away with both physical geography and cartography as basic parts of the course. More important for what, after the 1960 Congress, was called “modern geography” was experience of statistical analysis and testing hypotheses. Old-style cartographic-visual methods were to be totally replaced by the computerised processing of geographical data. In the 1960s and 1970s the more theoretically based social geography was entrusted with great state investigatory work within the framework of spatial planning, administrative classification, urban systems, the localisation of public services (education and health care etc), public transport systems and regional policies, all under the umbrella of the “strong welfare state” . Historical human geography, which still focused on maps and in particular the landscape, was also in demand in the face of growing nature-conservation problems during a period of rapid changes in the cultural landscape resulting from the industrialisation of agriculture.

In the field of physical geography, 'remote sensing', computerised satellite and air-photo analysis was developed, making it possible to chart effectively and economically vegetation and natural forms, especially in the mountain areas.

Thus, applied geography, “commissioned geography”, began to characterise the activities of many university departments during this period of powerful regional planning and great public interest. Pure research found it difficult to compete for grants and post-graduate students, which proved to be a risky situation when there was a change of regime and state-commissioned work dried up.

On the other hand, GIS (Geographical Informations System) was developed into a geographical technique that found ever-increasing uses in various fields of society.

In the late 1980s, there was a new turn for the unified subject of geography, which had attracted growing public interest in its global information as a way of keeping up with disturbing changes in the global systems and the intrusive coverage of natural disasters, starvation and other world catastrophes. Geography reappeared as a subject in upper-secondary schools and gained a strong position in 2006.

It is worth pointing out that the National Atlas of Sweden, the largest ever government investment in a Swedish geographical project, helped to raise new public interest in geography and triggered new geographical-cartographical co-operation.

Maps and geography go together, now as in the past. Geographers use maps in various ways in different stages of their research, as source material, as a tool, as a way of reporting results.

The state cartographic material, which is becoming more and more technically accomplished, whether it is economic, geological or topographical maps, is a readily accessible source of good geometrical precision for geographers. From a research point of view, a map is never out of date. If it represents reality in a reliable way, it is an immensely valuable carrier of information about environmental change. Even if it is not a reliable representation of reality, it still remains a carrier of the history of ideas. Swedish geography has had the benefit of access to an unusual richness of maps measured in the field on a large scale over a period of 375 years.

The ways of formulating geographical problems are often dependent on primary data with specific definitions that require quite exhaustive collecting. By mapping their data, geographers create a basis for making reasonable hypotheses about patterns, processes of change and connections. However, the rising costs of collecting one´s own data and the increasing accessibility of databases via the Internet make it more tempting to lower the standards of scientific precision and content oneself with available but less adequate data.

A map is a harsh companion. It reveals gaps in knowledge and weaknesses in underlying data. But a map is a very effective way of presenting geographical research results, whether in the form of purely empirical material, or approach or theories. Thematic cartography is still the geographer´s main responsibility.

Geographical associations, in Sweden in the first place SSAG (Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography), founded in 1877, have carried on the geographical-cartographical tradition from the time of the research expeditions. This tradition was activated in our own time by the national atlas project. The Atlas of Sweden (1950-1970s), with SSAG as the responsible organiser, marks a high point in Swedish thematic cartography. Geographers carried out fundamental cartographic work for the Atlas that was based directly on extensive, unwieldy, sometimes faulty and non-uniform material in the form of large-scale, general maps complemented by field studies and statistics, with the greatest possible resolution for exact localisation. Master maps were transferred to plastic by engraving, one sheet for each colour, that were superimposed when printed.

When the time was ripe for a new national atlas, now as a state-financed, ten-year project, 1987-1997, it was the era of computer technology. The National Atlas of Sweden (SNA) was to pioneer new technology and, alongside printed maps, provide digital databases and maps for the Internet.

Interest in, even love of maps is more widespread than anyone ever imagined. SNA´s public success is unique among the world´s many national atlases. Its format is being copied by others. Geography is the map´s only way out to all citizens, through school and school atlases. Maps are geography´s most popular way out to people.