Why does geography have relevance to math?

Answer 1

The history of mathematics would probably have been quite different without geography. The annual flooding of the Nile is believed to have been instrumental in the ancient Egyptians' interest in geometry and also trigonometry. Euclid, in particular, laid the groundwork for much of the geometry that is taught in schools even today. Yep, you can blame the Nile floods for all those trig ratios you have to memorise!

Map making required very accurate trigonometric calculations. Most maps - distances as well as elevations - are based on triangulation. In fact, you can find triangulation points at vantage points in most places countries - check out you national geographical survey. They are often in locations with spectacular views.

Until very recently (ie before SatNav) navigation required sailors (and other travellers) to be able to locate their positions accurately. This needed detailed information of the orbits of major celestial objects. Leaving aside diversion caused by theological disputes, these were major mathematical challenges, at it was only Kepler and Newton who finally figured out that the orbits were not made up of circles on top of circles on top of more circles, but simply ellipses.

The calculation of trigonometric ratios and planetary orbits required huge numbers of nearly identical (but not quite) calculations. It was too expensive to have highly trained mathematicians (or other scientists) do this so it was necessary to find simpler ways by which trained, but less expert people could do the calculations. This led to the development of logarithms, and ultimately the early tabulators - precursors of our computers.

I started this answer intending to say that geography needs mathematics but mathematics would have done fine without geography but, as you can see ...