Geography’s hotspots and frontiers: Diverse, systematic, and intelligent trends

Abstract

Based on the frequency of themes covered at the 35th International Geographical Congress (IGC) and the 2024 American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting (AAG-AM), we present an integrated analysis of current research hotspots in geography. The interdisciplinary approach of geography in tackling global challenges, including climate change, urbanization, and sustainable development is highlighted. Hotspot analysis of the 35th IGC reveals the prominence of “Tourism, Leisure, and Global Change,” and “Urban Geography” as key themes, whereas the 2024 AAG-AM placed more emphasis on “GeoAI and Deep Learning,” and “Geospatial Data Science for Sustainability.” Frontier analysis, based on emerging research beyond the two conferences, highlights major critical issues being confronted by geographers, notably Earth’s surface systems, spatial patterns of human activities, intelligent remote sensing, climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation, hazards and disaster risk, planetary boundaries, coupled human and natural systems, and global and regional sustainability. The analysis demonstrates that geographical research is becoming more diverse and systematic, and artificial intelligence technology is increasingly being harnessed. This not only reflects specific regional interests and priorities but also shows the dynamic development of geographical research and its important role in dealing with the challenges of the 21st century.

Keywords

Geography / Hotspots / Frontiers / Sustainable development / Global challenges

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 42430505, 42201299), and the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (Grant No. 2023QNRC001). We thank Drs. Qiulei Ji and Hui Dang from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Mengqi Qiu, Tianjing Wu, Yu Han from the Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, for their assistance in collecting conference information.

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