Adjunct professor/ History Department/ Dr Ali Shariati Faculty of Letters and Humanities/ Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
Abstract
Historical geography is a common term among geographers and historians that does not have the same definition. Geographers, according to their own definition of historical geography, carry out research on which subject, purpose and outcome are different from what the historians expect. Theoretical foundations and geopolitical methodology are clear for geographers, while historians have an anarchy in the same domain in terms of definition and methodology. Therefore, many of the research that holds the title of historical geography are in fact local history. This article seeks to provide a clear definition of historical geography, so that it can propose a research method for it. Historical geography in the history can be investigated at two levels of descriptive and analytical. At the first level, the subject of research is the study of developments in political boundaries over time and reestablishment of human geography in the past. While old-fashioned geographic research focused only on natural geography in past times and human settlements. At the analytical level, historical geography includes examining how geographic conditions affect the human development of the past.
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