Anthropogeography, or as it is also called Human Geography, was developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while the start of the use of the term and the basis of this approach comes from the two-volume book Anthropogeographie (1882 and 1891), written by the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904). Anthropogeography builds on earlier studies of the influence of geography on history and cultures made by  German geographer Carl Ritter (1779-1859). Anthropogeography studies the interrelationship of humans, their societies their migrations, on one side, and their physical geographical environment, on the other side. The most famous early student of Ratzel was French geographer Paul Vidal de La Blache, and Serbian geographer Jovan Cvijić.

Vidal de la Blache (1845-1918) introduced the concept of genre de vie, which refers to the ways people used techniques and technology, in order to exploit their environment. This interaction between the environment, technology, and people creates a specific way of life that propagates itself as a force of habit.

Cvijić mainly studied geography and geology, but he also made an extremely great contribution to the study of Balkan psychological types. He also studied populations, migration, classification, and typology of settlements, delineation of the most important cultural zones and zones of civilizations,  and economic activity of Balkan peoples. He is considered the founder of our anthropogeographic school and the founder of ethnopsychology in Serbia, a scientific discipline that deals with the study of the psychology of peoples, cultural and social groups. He developed his classification of different ethnopsychological types and varieties of Balkan people. Cvijić considered that the primary factor for the formation of ethnopsychological characteristics of the population and their types was the geographical environment and that secondary factors were historical processes and social structure, i.e. occupations, patterns of endogamy and exogamy, as well as migrations. Results of his theoretical and fieldwork were represented in the books Anthropogeographical Problems of the Balkan Peninsula (1902), and its significantly expanded version Balkan Peninsula and South Slavic Countries (1931).

Relevant authors who are not in this encyclopedia: Brunhes, Jean; La Blache, Paul Vidal de; Ratzel, Friedrich; Ritter, Carl.

Books:

Cvijić. The Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serb problem: with two maps (1909);

     -     La Peninsule Balkanique: Geographie Humaine (1918);

     -     Studies in Jugoslav Psychology (1931);

     -     La géographie des terrains calcaires (1960);

La Blache, Paul Vidal de. Principles of Human Geography (1918);

Ratzel, Friedrich. Anthropogeographie, 2 vols (1882, 1891).