Laws of Geography

The most prominent law in geography is Tobler’s first law (TFL) of geography, which states that “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.” No other law in geography has received more attention than TFL. It is important because many spatial statistical methods have been developed since its publication and, especially since the advent of geographic information system (GIS) and geospatial technology, have been conceptually based on it. These methods include global and local indicators of spatial autocorrelation (SA), spatial and spatial-temporal hotspots and cold spots, and spatial interpolation. All of these are highly relevant to spatial crime analysis, modeling, and mapping and will be discussed in the main part of this text.