The second law of geography, according to

Waldo Tobler Waldo Rudolph Tobler (November 16, 1930 – February 20, 2018) was an American-Swiss geographer and cartographer. Tobler's idea that "Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things" is referred to ...

, is "the phenomenon external to a geographic area of interest affects what goes on inside."

Background

Tobler's second law of geography, "the phenomenon external to a geographic area of interest affects what goes on inside," is an extension of his

first First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

. He first published it in 2004 in a reply to criticism of his first law of geography titled "On the First Law of Geography: A Reply." Much of this criticism was centered on the question of if laws were meaningful in geography or any of the social sciences. In this document, Tobler proposed his second law while recognizing others have proposed other concepts to fill the role of 2nd law. Tobler asserted that this phenomenon is common enough to warrant the title of 2nd law of geography. Unlike

Tobler's first law of geography The First Law of Geography, according to Waldo Tobler, is "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." This first law is the foundation of the fundamental concepts of spatial dependence and spatia ...

, which is relatively well accepted among

geographers A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

, there are a few contenders for the title of the second law of

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

. Tobler's second law of geography is less well known but still has profound implications for geography and spatial analysis. Tobler's second law of geography has implications whenever a boundary is drawn on a map, particularly in arbitrary boundaries such as political borders.

Foundation

spatial analysis Spatial analysis or spatial statistics includes any of the formal techniques which studies entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties. Spatial analysis includes a variety of techniques, many still in their early deve ...

, it is often (usually) necessary to subset a study area from the globe. Tobler's first law of geography states that "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant."Tobler W., (1970
"A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit region"
''Economic Geography'', 46(Supplement): 234–240. Thus, the geographic area relevant to a phenomenon being studied extends far outside this study area, and this relevant geographic location is not necessarily consistent over time. Due to

distance decay Distance decay is a geographical term which describes the effect of distance on cultural or spatial interactions. The distance decay effect states that the interaction between two locales declines as the distance between them increases. Once the di ...

, the effect of distant things falls as distance increases but never goes to zero. This has implications in both the

modifiable areal unit problem __NOTOC__ The modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) is a source of statistical bias that can significantly impact the results of statistical hypothesis tests. MAUP affects results when point-based measures of spatial phenomena are aggregated into ...

(MAUP), the

boundary problem A boundary problem in analysis is a phenomenon in which geographical patterns are differentiated by the shape and arrangement of boundaries that are drawn for administrative or measurement purposes. The boundary problem occurs because of the loss o ...

, and the Uncertain Geographic Context Problem (UGCoP). In the boundary problem in particular, when geographic boundaries are arbitrary and not based on natural features, the phenomena under evaluation is likely to continue and be influenced by space beyond the study area.

Controversy

In general, some dispute the entire concept of laws in geography and the social sciences. These criticisms have been addressed by Tobler and others. However, this is an ongoing source of debate in geography and unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.

Other proposed second laws of geography

Some have argued that geographic laws do not need to be numbered. However, the existence of a first invites the creation of a second. In addition to Tobler's second law, several scholars have proposed candidates for a second. *

Arbia's law of geography Arbia’s law of geography states, "Everything is related to everything else, but things observed at a coarse spatial resolution are more related than things observed at a finer resolution." Originally proposed as the 2nd law of geography, this is ...

: "Everything is related to everything else, but things observed at a coarse spatial resolution are more related than things observed at a finer resolution." * Tim Foresman and Ruth Luscombe's Second law of geography: "Things that know where they are can act on their locational knowledge. Spatially enabled things have increased financial and functional utility." * the uncertainty principle: "that the geographic world is infinitely complex and that any representation must therefore contain elements of uncertainty, that many definitions used in acquiring geographic data contain elements of vagueness, and that it is impossible to measure location on the Earth's surface exactly." * It has been proposed that Tobler's first law of geography should be moved to the second and replaced with another.

References

{{Geography topics Empirical laws Eponyms Geography Transportation planning

Background

Foundation

Controversy

Other proposed second laws of geography

See also

References