The Evolution of Geography-based South Asia StudiesCarsten Butsch, Martin Franz und and Mareike Kroll

ASIEN – Nr. 134 (2015) pp. 5–8

Geography as a scientific discipline in Germany forms a longstanding tradition in research on South Asia. Traditionally the focus of German geographers was on landscapes, understood as entities consisting of natural (for example surface structures, soils, and vegetation) and anthropogenic (such as settlements and cultivated areas) elements. These different elements were analyzed within large-scale contexts such as climatic or cultural zones. Publications about South Asia written before the 1960s aimed at describing this identified entity, as well as the “personality” of the subcontinent…