Cultural geography is another broad subfield of human geography. The subject has now come to include all applications of the idea of culture to geographical problems. The investigation of such collective groups in their areal differentiation and interrelations is termed social geography. This term, long applied in Europe, is increasingly being applied in the United States as well. Inevitably, it overlaps cultural geography.
Political geography examines political phenomena in their areal context.
Thus, geography has an historical component. However, when we speak of historical geography, we generally mean geography of the past for its own sake. Apart from its focus upon some former era, historical geography employs the same concepts and asks the same questions as do other branches of the discipline. Another approach to geographical analysis is to carve out a specific cross-section of the discipline for special examination. Environmental geography might serve as an example.