The functions of land forms extend beyond the control of the circulation of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the water which is continually being interchanged between them; they are exercised with increased effect in the higher departments of biogeography and anthropogeography.
Man in the primitive stages of culture is scarcely to be distinguished from other animals as regards his subjection to environment, but in the higher grades of culture the conditions of control and reaction become much more complicated, and the department of anthropogeography is devoted to their consideration.
Next follows the distribution of plants and animals (biogeography), and finally the distribution of mankind and the various artificial boundaries and redistributions (anthropogeography).
The applications of anthropogeography to human uses give rise to political and commercial geography, in the elucidation of which all the earlier departments or stages have to be considered, together with historical and other purely human conditions.