What is Historical Geography?

• a discipline on the intersection of natural, social, and technical sciences, and humanities, primarily connecting historiography and geography with two main functions: historical geography as an independent transdisciplinary branch of study and historical geography as an applied discipline
• a discipline examining the “lost time” and “lost space” focusing on interaction of society and space (landscape/landscapes) in the course of centuries. It studies problems associated with transformations of relationships between society and nature (people and their “lived space”) in various historical periods and on different geographical scales
• a discipline contributing through reconstruction, analysis, interpretation and explanation of changes in time and space to the understanding of phenomena, processes, causes, mechanisms, impacts and the importance of transformations of historical (urban, rural) landscapes, regions and borders as well as natural and cultural heritage. In general, it deals with the importance of places for the development of geographical organization of society and territorial communities
• a discipline giving answers to questions regarding recent social, economic, political, cultural and environmental problems as well as their roots in the past
• a discipline applying modern technologies in the study and utilization of various written and iconographic sources from a variety of archives, map collections, public and private libraries as well as artifacts in cultural landscape (reconstruction maps in GIS, cartographic data visualization, 3D modeling, etc.)
• a discipline with a tradition lasting for over a century and with significant potential for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary cooperation in international scientific space