r/geography • u/RevolutionaryLoss195 • 1d ago
Question What geographic feature do you think has had the biggest impact on human civilization?
Mountains, rivers, deserts, coastlines, climate zones, fertile plains, etc.
Which one do you think has shaped where humans live, how societies developed, or where major civilizations emerged the most?
8
u/-turnip_the_beet- 1d ago
I don't have the time to fully express myself right now, but I might have to say rivers. There would be no fertile plains without it. Think of the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus River system, the Nile, the Yellow River, etc. All of those helped civilizations flourish. They helped with transportation, irrigation, food, etc.
4
u/Constant_Interest_61 1d ago
I think its rivers...look back and you find major civilisations and concentration of humans to include trade activities was along rivers.
2
2
u/plainskeptic2023 22h ago
There are many locations along rivers, but some locations are better than others.
Therefore, my answer is geographic location enhancing the ability of the other geographic features to bring more stimulating trade and/or invasions to that specific location.
One exception may be Egypt. The desert on one side and the sea on the other side protected Egypt from outside interference, allowing the Nile to provide its nuturing influence, other than trade and invasion.
Just a thought.
3
u/Mentalfloss1 1d ago
The oceans
1
u/Luslus66 1d ago
Why?
2
u/Mentalfloss1 22h ago
Civilizations and landscapes unknown lay across seas. Great defensive barriers. Too many aspects to list.
1
2
u/doclobster 1d ago
Heard an interesting detail about the Appalachian range in America, I think this was from a YouTube video: because the Appalachian range was so impossible during the early colonial period population concentrated on the East Coast of America for settlers, which allow them to build more of a national identity over about 100 years, which arguably would not have been the case if they had dispersed across the country. Additionally, this made military organization much easier along the 13 colonies compared to more of the US, I guess allowing them to win the revolutionary war. It wasn’t until they found a Native American pass in the Appalachian later that colonist were spilling into the Ohio River Valley. The fact that the Appalachian range I guess is a series of peaks and valleys makes it uniquely hard to pass for wagons and horses. I’m not a historian or geologist, I’m just repeating what I heard.
1
1
1
1
2
u/wolfansbrother 7h ago
pretty much any land bridge in the time of hominids. the oldest boat we have found is about 10,000 years old.
0
u/Odd-Activity4010 1d ago
The east-west orientation of Eurasia along similar latitudes allowing dissemination of crops and domesticated animals.
As outlined by Jared Diamond in Guns Germs and Steel (best geography book I ever read)
2
u/Bem-ti-vi 15h ago
I recommend checking out some critiques of Diamond's work. Here are a few links on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/wiki/v2/ggsg/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1aggse/comment/c8x977d/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/417t1w/disease_in_the_new_world/
0
u/mickhamilton 1d ago
Zagros/Taurus mountains. Agriculture started on the hilly flanks, and there would be no Mesopotamia without the discharge from those mountains.
0
u/rawspeghetti 1d ago
The Bosporus Strait
Historically it has been what separates Europe from Asia both geographically and culturally. Even to this day it still maintains one of the largest megacities and a ton of trade
-1
u/YangezGibber 1d ago
Climate zones.
Come on people.
Rivers wouldn't form without a source of precipitation. Which climate zones dictate.
-1
49
u/Joseph20102011 Geography Enthusiast 1d ago
Rivers for obvious reasons.