ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the major themes of research and points of contention among scholars in the field of historical geography. Historical geography is an area of study likely to be unfamiliar to many readers. Through comparison of sequential map reconstructions of landscapes at particular points in time, it is possible to analyze geographic changes between the periods in question. Geographic research esteems various sorts of statistical analysis of populations by geographic units. The Geographic Information System (GIS) utilized in automobile navigation systems offers one example of what is possible here. Scholarship on the historical geography of medieval villages has inspired considerable debate over the distinctive properties of the medieval village, particularly with regard to Chinese influences during the classical era and continuities from that epoch into medieval period. Japan's medieval age is generally regarded as the epoch from the end of the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries although there remain differences of opinion on both beginning and endpoints of period.
