Human Geography

Human geography is the branch of geography concerned with how people, cultures, economies and societies organise themselves across space and place. Where physical geography studies landforms, climate and ecosystems, human geography examines urban and rural landscapes, migration and mobility, economic development, social inequality, geopolitics, and the ways in which places are shaped by and in turn shape the communities that inhabit them. It is a discipline that takes space and place seriously as organising principles of human experience, asking why things are where they are and what that means for people's lives.

At Aberystwyth, this three-year full-time programme is taught in a department of geography with a long and distinguished history, one of the most established of its kind in the UK. The location itself is distinctive, a university town on the coast of mid-Wales that offers a particular vantage point on questions of rural society, Welsh culture, environmental geography and the relationship between communities and their landscapes. You will develop skills in qualitative and quantitative research methods, fieldwork, geographical information systems and data analysis alongside your subject knowledge, which spans urban geography, social geography, economic geography and political geography.

Human geography at Aberystwyth benefits from a department that has shaped the discipline in the UK, and you will study in an environment where research and teaching are closely connected.

Graduates of human geography programmes go into a wide range of careers. Urban and regional planning, environmental and development consultancy, the civil service, international development organisations, NGOs, housing and regeneration, education, research and data analysis are all common destinations. The analytical and fieldwork skills the degree develops are valued across public, private and voluntary sectors.