THE NEW GEOGRAPHY

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In Japanese geography education, the Köppen climate classification was introduced before the WWⅡ and is the major climate classification in Japan. This paper clarifies the process by which Köppen’s climate classification became established in Japanese geography education, along with the changes in physical geography learning. In this research, the Courses of Study, and textbooks from the 1930s to the 2010s were analized. It was confirmed that the ratio of physical geography in textbooks increased or decreased due to how much subject changes were dealt with in Courses of Study. Based on the amount of the description of Köppen’s climate classification, the timing of its establishment was determined. The process could be categorized as the early period in the 1930s, the period of disorder from the 1940s to the 1950s, and the period of establishment that has continued since the 1960s. Köppen’s climate classification became prevalent in Japanese geography education because it was used in region geography in the first post-war human geography textbooks. It was just a model of climate classification, until then. However it was developed as a way of learning climate with descriptions of vegetation, soil, agriculture and livestock. How much Köppen’s climate classification have been covered in textbooks in Japanese geography education can be viewed as a mediation between physical geography and human geography. The Köppen climate classification is considered to have systematized geography education as a whole.

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