What a geographical entity could be

Abstract

The main task of this article is providing a sketch of possible approaches, response attempts, conundrums and issues arising from the question: 'What is a geographical entity?'. It is shown how trying to answer this question is made particularly difficult by a multiplicity of aspects that might be summarized as follows: (1) There exist multiple conceptualizations of the geographical world. (2) Different languages and cultures may slice such a world in different ways. (3) The geographical world has changed and will change over time. (4) Also geography (as a discipline) has changed and will change over time, modifying its perspective, tools, domains of investigation and aims. Consequently, what had, has been, will be considered as non-geographic could be considered as geographic and vice versa. (5) There were, are and will be different kinds of geographies as well as different geographical branches, each of them had, have and might have different tools, aims, points of view and vocabularies. (6) The introduction of new scholarly fields and new technologies, the birth of intellectual movements or paradigm shifts and developments on other disciplinary contexts can/will influence geography as a discipline.