One of the contemporaries of Alexander von Humboldt and scholar of diversified interest, Carl Ritter is also known as one of the founders of modern geographical thought. He was a dedicated field worker and believed in empirical research. Moreover, Ritter was a teleologist and a strong believer of God and not agnostic like Humboldt.
Ritter had a vision of an ordered and harmonious universe. Thus this approach was teleological. As a teacher he made it clear to his students how God's plan was revealed in the harmony of man and nature.
It was 1807 when Ritter met Alexander von Humboldt for the first time, and was highly impressed by his versatility in observations of natural and human phenomena in the different parts of the world. He founded the Berlin Geographical Society. In 1859 he breathed his last, the year in which Alexander von Humboldt also expired.
Ritter in his class lectures emphasized that geography is not a gazetteer of dry facts about the names of places, rivers, mountains, trade routes, but it is a subject, which deals with the man-nature interrelationship. He developed the concept of 'unity in diversity'.
Ritter declared geography as 'Erdkunde' or earth science, which deals with local conditions and embraces the attributes of place with respect to topical, formal and material characteristics. The first attribute was topographical i.e. it deals with the natural divisions of the earth surface. The second included the distribution and movement of water, sea atmosphere, and the base of human life. The material. conditions were described as the geographical aspect of natural history; this covered the distribution of minerals, plants and animals.
Thus according to Ritter geography is that branch of science which deals with the globe in all its features, phenomena and relations as an independent unit and shows the connection of this unified 'whole' with man and with man's creator. He claimed that the central principle of geography is 'the relation of all phenomena and forms of nature to the human race'. He makes a rhetorical claim of geography as the science of earth that reaches for beyond the real objectives, namely, the description of the earth as the home of man.
Principle of Unity in Diversity. The fundamental principle evolved by Ritter was 'Unity in Diversity'. According to him there is a fundamental unity in the biotic and abiotic components of habitat in which man sculptures his cultural environment. In such an approach all the physical and cultural components of environment are taken into consideration and their interrelationship is established in understanding the geography of an areal unit. This is a regional approach. Unity in diversity means that every naturally bounded area is in unity in respect of climate, production, culture, population and history. Ritter makes a few deterministic observations, he seldom does more than repeat what Humboldt has already written and gives the same synthetical accounts of continents. The merit of Ritter's work came not from his description of the continent but from his ability to deduce these from a system of laws governing 'the concept of regional association of terrestrial phenomena at various levels over the earth's surface'.
Ritter's method is said to be deductive because it deduces new conclusions from the fundamental assumptions or from truths established by other methods. So far there is little to distinguish Ritter's ideas from Humboldt's and in the spatial arrangement of terrestrial phenomena, there is marked similarity between the two colleagues.
Ritter introduced many stimulating ideas. He stressed the idea of the land and water hemispheres, the distinction between the rates of heating and cooling of land and water, the difference between the northern and the southern hemisphere in their proportion of land and water. Then too, there were differences between the continents - Africa had relatively short and the most regular of all coastlines and its interior has least contact with the sea; Asia was better provided with sea-inlets, but the interior had little marine contract and Europe was the most varied of all, with an ease of approach along its shore line of comparatively great length. He identified each continent with a different race, having a different color. For example, according to him, Africa is a continent of blacks, Europe of white people, Asia of yellow people and America of red people. This over generalization created much obscurity in the world of geography.
Locals hypothesize that the legacy of Italian blood and culture in Cologne, colonized by the Romans more than 1500 years ago, makes the people more jovial and lighthearted. Cologne is the largest city on the Rhine.
Kolsch is not only the dialect spoken here but, also the name of their own top-fermented beer. There are more than 4,000 pubs, restaurant's and brewery taverns in Cologne.
Unlike many of the world's large cities, Cologne, with a population of over a million, gets better every day, there are more things to do and see, more new and innovative buildings... more
Travel is an opportunity to learn, whether geography, languages, history or other subjects.
Principle of Unity in Diversity. The fundamental principle evolved by Ritter was 'Unity in Diversity'. According to him there is a fundamental unity in the biotic and abiotic components of habitat in which man sculptures his cultural environment. In such an approach all the physical and cultural components of environment are taken into consideration and their interrelationship is established in understanding the geography of an areal unit. This is a regional approach. Unity in diversity means that every naturally bounded area is in unity in respect of climate, production, culture, population and history. Ritter makes a few deterministic observations, he seldom does more than repeat what Humboldt has already written and gives the same synthetical accounts of continents. The merit of Ritter's work came not from his description of the continent but from his ability to deduce these from a system of laws governing 'the concept of regional association of terrestrial phenomena at various levels over the earth's surface'.
Cologne is situated on the beautiful Rhine River.