Geography as a Framework for Understanding the World

Place is an explanatory variable

Rivers, coastlines, mountain passes and distance to markets quietly determine a surprising share of economic and political outcomes.

From geography to data

Studying geography seriously leads to statistics (to measure), GIS (to map), and eventually data science (to model). This chain is mapped in the Knowledge Atlas.

# A first spatial question: how far is each city from the coast?
import geopandas as gpd
cities = gpd.read_file("cities.geojson")
coast = gpd.read_file("coastline.geojson")
cities["coast_km"] = cities.geometry.distance(coast.unary_union) / 1000

Sample editorial for demonstration.