Abstract
Japanese geography has been greatly influenced by American academia since the Second World War. The first wave was the quantitative revolution, which occurred at the end of the 1950s. Sophisticated analytical techniques and fine spatial models were introduced to Japanese geography and used in empirical studies, especially in the field of urban/transportation geography in the 1970s. The second wave was the new geography in the 1980s, including behavioral, radical and humanistic approaches. The third wave was the GIS revolution in the 1990s, which has been promoting a problem-solving approach focusing on policy matters. In this paper, I discuss how American geography has impacted on the development of Japanese human geography during this half century.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Berry B.J.L. and Marble D.Y. (eds), 1968: Spatial Analysis: A Reader in Statistical Geography. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs.
King L., 1969: Statistical Analysis in Geography. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs.
Kubo S., 1980: Recent trend in geographical information processing. The Human geography 32: 328–350 (in Japanese).
Masai Y., 1962: Notification in techniques of recent American human geography: Its status in the methodology of geography. Journal of Geography 728: 111–118 (in Japanese).
Matui I., 1932: Statistical study of the distribution of scattered villages in two regions of the Tonami Plain, Toyama Prefecture. Japanese Journal of Geology and Geography 9: 251–266 (in Japanese).
Murayama Y., 1991: Spatial Structure of Transport Flows. Kokon-Shoin, Tokyo.
Okuno T., 1969: Quantitative methods in the Univ. of Chicago and the Northwestern Univ. through their geographical research papers. Geographical Review of Japan 42: 719–724 (in Japanese).
Sugiura Y., 1987:Ackerman and “social establishment” of American geography: rethinking the quantitative revolution. Geographical Review of Japan 60 (Ser.A): 323–346 (in Japanese with English abstract).
Takeuchi K., 2000: Reform after the second world war and geography. Geographical Review of Japan 73 (Ser.A): 248–250 (in Japanese).
Tezuka A., 1988: Innovation and tradition. In: Nakamura K. and Takahashi N. (eds), Introduction to Geography, pp. 168–191. Kokon-Shoin, Tokyo (in Japanese).
Yagasaki N., Saito I. and Kanno M. (eds), 2003: American High Plains: Formation and Sustainability of a Global Food Producing Region. Kokon-Shoin, Tokyo (in Japanese).
Yeates M.H., 1968: An Introduction to Quantitative Analysis in Economic Geography. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Murayama, Y. American influence on Japanese human geography: A focus on the quantitative and GIS revolutions. GeoJournal 59, 73–76 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:GEJO.0000015447.54402.0c
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:GEJO.0000015447.54402.0c