PL
Na tle poglądów na temat geografii regionalnej przedstawiono zmiany w czasie działalności badawczej Zakładu Geografii Regionalnej w minionym pięćdziesięcioleciu oraz dorobek w podziale na: prace metodologiczne, badawcze, encyklopedie, monografie i podręczniki oraz prace bibliograficzne, kartograficzne i nazewnicze.
EN
Research activity at the Department of Regional Geography in the past 50 years has been reviewed in the context of the geographical thought of the 20th century, subdivided into the following categories: methodology, research, encyclopedias, monographic studies, manuals, as well as bibliographical, cartographical and onomastic works. As far as methodological works are concerned, one should mention, first of all, a new approach to, and the very idea of the subject and objectives of regional geographical studies, developed at the Department in the late 1970s. The crucial point of the new approach was seeking relations between the natural environment and man and his activities in different regions, while applying various methods for analyzing the relationships. Other methodological works concerned such issues as for example: links between certain geographical issues (political borders, globalization processes) and regional geography, various details relating to methods and approaches, principles governing research in regional geography and some methodological problems relating to geography and environmental protection. From the moment the Department of Regional Geography of Warsaw University was established till the early 1970s, its research studies were dominated by social and economic problems, including population studies, studies on the Polish community abroad, on migration and urbanization, economic activity, as well as regional and economic development in various parts of the world. Very many studies dealt with geographical rural problems in non-Polish territories. Historical, political and cultural geography was also frequently approached. Since the mid-1960s, research studies have been mainly focused on relations betweens human activity and the natural environment, which became the dominant subject in the subsequent years. These subjects, analyzed from different perspectives, were dealt with not only by research staff in their publications, but also, with a few exceptions, by students writing their MA theses, thus contributing to the overall academic achievement of the Department. This concurrence, or rather subordination of one of the most important teaching elements to basic academic research, should be emphasized in this context. In regional geography, relationships are perceived in terms of spatial (and sometimes, also temporal) coexistence of natural and socio-economic phenomena, a prerequisite for examining causal relationships between the natural environment and the domain of human activity. The following research assumptions adopted in regional geography provide the theoretical grounds for these relations: factors confining human activity, diversification as a common attribute of the natural environment, with impact on man and his activity, a chain of intermediate man environment interconnections, changing character of these interrelations in time, their dual and bi-directional nature. Various statistic methods are used in examining spatial co-appearance of some of the features of the natural environment and the corresponding features of the socio-economic sphere. On the part of the natural environment, these interrelationships were analyzed in terms of its diversification, its usefulness with respect to various human activities, impact of its individual qualities, existing limits and barriers of physical and geographical character, impact of changes of the environment and, finally, its degradation. On the part of the socio-economic phenomena, the following aspects were taken into consideration: population density, deployment and durability of settlements, various issues related to agriculture and land use, density and character of communication and transportation systems, tourism and tourist facilities, economic development and its attributes. Research activity of the Department of Regional Geography is evidenced by a total of 163 chosen published studies.