Through evolution, humans began adapting to different environments to which they migrated, which began giving humans physical differences like skin color. Fast forward to when cities were formed, geography impacted agriculture, economics and militaristic strategies. Geography is the single most important factor that decides if a civilization will prosper and survive throughout centuries.
The most revolutionizing factor that caused humans to settle and develop a civilization was the ability to farm. The geographical features of a land will determine if it is suitable for farming. Humans began with hunting and gathering, which caused them to constantly travel. Traveling took up most of early humans’ time, not allowing them to focus on different aspects of development. Ancient Mesopotamia became one of the first civilizations, due to its geographic features. Mesopotamia was located between two rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris River. To the north were the Caucasus Mountains. The snow that melted from the Caucasus drained down into the rivers that caused them to flood. With the melted snow came silt, which made the soil very rich (Lecture, 7/12/16). This flooding created fertile land where farming was ideal. As farming became more popular, villages …show more content…
Many battles have been lost throughout history due to geographic negligence, from the Battle of Thermopylae to World War II. Warfare is one of the biggest reasons for the destruction of a civilization. Laurentiu Grigore says, “Military actions, regardless of context, take place in a given space and time. The geographic area is the context of the military action, with all its natural and artificial factors…” (Grigore, 2014). A civilizations resourcefulness to protect itself from invaders relies heavily on the ability to use the geographic advantages. Mesopotamia did not have many of those advantages, such as mountains and harsh deserts, so the leaders focused on building walls. Walls were so important in the Mesopotamian civilization that the kings’ ability to rule was measured by how strong his walls were. Michael Vollbach explains, “Walls demonstrated whether the king was proficient in his job. The worst thing that could be said about a king, as was mentioned of Gilgamesh of Uruk was that “he did not keep good walls” (Vollbach, 11). The stress on keeping strong walls is a result of the lack of natural geographical defenses. Some civilizations like the ancient Egypt had very tough geographical features, that in their early years, gave them no outside influence and time to improve on other aspects of a civilization besides militaristic needs (Lockard, 50). In many cases, numbers of soldiers do dictate