The study in geography of regions and of their distinctive qualities. A precondition of this study is the recognition of a region, its naming, and the delimitation of its boundaries. One approach has been to identify ‘natural’ regions while another was to establish economic regions based on agriculture and/or industry. Often there was an intimation of a link between the two types of region. Once the keystone of geography, the status of regional geography has been in decline: ‘regional geography survives—if not in most of our major universities, then at least in the public eye. Believe it or not, the informed public still thinks that geographers have particular and unusual perspectives and insights on foreign areas as well as domestic issues, and that geographers can explain “the way the world works” because they have a comprehensive view of it’ (Murphy et al. (2005) PHG 29, 2). ‘The great number of feasible ways of dividing space into regions and time into periods opens the door for alternative narratives, including those which challenge conventional Eurocentric interpretations’ (Wishart (2004) PHG 28, 3).