Region in Geography

Paul Clavel
Region in Geography

This paper offers an overview as to the way in which the idea of the region in geography has changed, drawing as it does so, on reflections developed by the author over some forty years now (Claval, 1968; 1989; 1992; 1998; 2000; 2006).

The last decade of the 19th century and the first of the 20th were a time in which the regional approach progressed greatly—as did the whole of human geography: open curiosity, the systematic use of the new methods then available to detect the existence of homogeneous or nodal areas, and the discovery of the multiplicity of territorial divisions in any country all gave many indications as to the complexity of regional organization.