Influence of Geography on Civilization Essay

Geography, climate, and civilization have a great relationship because geography can affect civilization either positively or negatively. Civilization adapts the specific geography around them for instance, the life of Egyptians revolved around the river Nile. Since the springs around the river and the river itself flooded in the valleys thus depositing rich soils all through the valley thus making the planting and harvesting seasons of the Egyptians to be dependent on the seasonal movements of the river (Ghosh, 2017). So often, civilization came to be at the fertile lands along the rivers. For example, the earliest civilization like the Sumerians rose between Tigris and the Euphrates rivers at the Mesopotamia region (Ghosh, 2017). Harappa civilization in India also developed along fertile river valley known as Indus River Valley. That brings the conclusion that rivers are a good example of the effect of geography on history. Civilization in China and in Mesopotamia as a result of the annual rain waters are the things that will be discussed in the paper.

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The geography of Mesopotamia has contributed largely to its civilization. The land of Mesopotamia is semi aid thus made it difficult for people to cultivate on their lands. Initially, in the early days, the people in Mesopotamia had no idea of how they could utilize their seasonal annual rainfall since they did not have much rainfall. Annually it rained less than ten inches. However, the run-off and the rivers that flowed down the mountains would bring water to the plateaus thus making the lands very fertile and suitable for farming. The Euphrates and Tigris river was filling with snow that during the sunny season would melt causing overflows of the rivers. The overflows flooded the valleys and the plateaus thus bringing in fertile silt from the rivers. That made their soil quality to improve making it suitable for farming (Ghosh, 2017). Also due to the frequency of droughts in the Mesopotamia land, the Mesopotamians had to think of a way that they would continue with their farming as they control the floods that they had. They learned of irrigation scheme which is civilizations where they were able to use the river overflows to farm and during dry seasons hey would stretch the water from the rivers to their farms (Ghosh, 2017). The Mesopotamians due to the floods and the nature of their farming land, they started using ditches, canals, and dams that would help lower or raise the water levels of the rivers thus preventing their crops from the threatening floods.

The geography of China also affected the ancient civilization of the country. The geographical landscape of China is very diverse and affected Chinese ancient civilization. The civilization was developing long the Yangtze Rivers and Huang He rivers. The mountains and rivers in China protected and isolated the Chinese. The mountains in China are the Hindu Kush Mountains and the Himalaya mountains. The isolation made them develop their traditional culture (Tregear, 2017). The people there also developed an ethnocentric worldview because they thought they had superior cultures which they viewed as barbarians. The civilization in , however, began at the yellow river and Yangtze River valleys (Tregear, 2017). That happened because there was deposition of fertile silt from the river that the Chinese used for agriculture thus leading to dynasties formation. They also used the rivers for transport as a way of civilization.

References

Ghosh, A. K. (2017). Historic civilization: Geographic impact. International Journal of Applied Research, Research Journals. Delhi, India, 3(7), 694.Tregear, T. R. (2017). A geography of China. Routledge.