Derek Thompson

Abstract

Geography has experienced fairly rapid growth in the last ten years in theuse of statistical and mathematical techniques. WTell represented in this expansionis the group of statistical procedures known as multivariate analysis. This paperaims to illustrate the relevance of such techniques to geography, not by summarizingtheir applications as they have appeared in the literature, but by discussingtheir basic features and the kinds of question which they can help solve. Thisapproach provides a more useful guide to their possible applications in geography,although it does mean that the description of the uses of particular techniquesis subordinate to an account of multivariate methods in general.

Derek Thompson, University of Sheffield