Geography is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes. Four historical traditions in geographical research are the spatial analysis of natural and human phenomena (geography as a study of distribution), area studies (places and regions), study of man-land relationship, and research in earth sciences. A geographist is a scientist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's physical environment and human habitat. Though geographists are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography. Geographists study not only the physical details of the environment but also its impact on human and wildlife ecologies, weather and climate patterns, economics, and culture. The book (in three volumes) contain the life and work of World Great Geographists.