Quantitative Geography

The Basics

It presents useful insights and example to help student understand the subject matter

As with other texts by Harris, this book is written in a way that is accessible to undergraduate students who may be unsure of their quantitative abilities. The book is nicely divided into three parts that progressively lead the student from understanding why quantitative geography is useful, through the basics of maths and statistics needed to do quantitative geography, to the final part that shows how quantitative geography is done. Harris does an excellent job making quantitative geography interesting in a way that works well for both students who have strong quantitative skills as well as those who don't. This, through ample use of diagrams (in colour) and clear explanations, and a minimum of equations required to effectively teach key concepts in quantitative geography.

As an approachable introduction to quantitative methods, this book will be a good entry point for the Year 1 students taking the Researching Manchester course that I lead.

This book is the perfect complement to our undergraduate programming and statistics class: challenging without being too daunting, consistent in its use of examples to develop deeper insights, and comprehensive in its coverage of the foundations of quantitative geography.

The title may say 'Basic', but the content certainly doesn't: the book hits that narrow line between too basic (no maths, no deeper explanations) and too advanced (too many 'it clearly follows that'). It's the way we try to teach our courses so it's a great fit.

A good overall understanding of the key areas of Quantitative Geography with good links to course material.