Unlike its companion volume the History, Strabo's Geography has not only survived, but is essentially complete. His handling of inherited traditions can thus be studied as a coherent whole, and the early books, especially, offer a unique perspective on scientific enquiry and natural science during the early principate.

Strabo considered both geography and its sister science astronomy integral to the philosopher's study of the physical world. They were also essential to the education of those politicians and military administrators involved in Roman governance. The following passage from 1.1.14 is a brief example of the perspective repeatedly encountered in the first book of the Geography:

The lengthy introduction of 1.1, with its emphasis on empirical data, transmitted by qualified observers and evaluated against a body of accepted philosophical theory, reflects a methodology for natural history first presented by Aristotle. Within this tradition, geography, whether chorographical or ethnographical, was a subset of natural history, and this in turn was a recognised area of scientific philosophy. Such an approach was part of those philosophical/scientific studies being assimilated from Greece by the Roman world in the first century bce.