Taafe (1974) identified three major traditions in geography: ‘spatial organization’, ‘man–land relations’ and ‘area study’. The first tradition, spatial organization, is defined as the arrangement of objects in geographical space. The second tradition, man–land relations, investigates the relationships between humankind and nature or biophysical environment. The third tradition refers to the study of places and regions and identifies the unique characteristics of those regions. These three views can be considered as separate but overlapping, leading to an integration of the three traditions. Geography as a discipline has two systematic components – human and physical. Physical geography studies the geographic aspects of the natural environment on the surface of the earth, and human geography studies the social, economic, urban and rural settlement systems of human populations. The focus of both these systematic components is: (i) to study the distribution and spatial structure of objects, (ii) to understand the processes explaining the spatial structure, and (iii) to use spatial policies to correct the maldistribution of these resources. Also important are the local and global forces influencing the spatial processes.

Geographers and non-geographers often ask whether there is unity in the approaches of the different components of geography. Imagine a volcanic eruption in Mount Etna and the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre – though one is a physical phenomenon and the other is a social geographic phenomenon, both were outcomes of a long-drawn process of disequilibrium and unrest.