1. Research Center of Human Geography, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China;
2. School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Abstract：Tourism geography is also a sub-disciplinary branch of geography with relatively independent professional knowledge system. The birth of tourism geography in China and in Nanjing University can be traced back to Ren Mei-e's article published in Acta Geographica Sinica in 1940 with name of "Natural Scenery and Its Geological Structure". After the reform and opening, the development of tourism geography in Nanjing University can be divided to two phases. From 1979 to 2002, tourism geography embedded in the traditional advantageous discipline of geography. Many old geographers recognized this new discipline and acted as pioneers. Scientific papers published in this phase contributed a lot in the foundation of tourism geography. These new papers mainly focused on evaluation, zoning and exploitation of tourism resources, environmental capacity of tourism destinations, the relationships between tourism and land management, the relationships between tourism and environment, and so on. From 2002 to now, tourism geography in Nanjing University have developed in depth either in coverage of basic issues in tourism geography, or in originality and innovations in tourism geography. In this phase, key research fields and subjects include the basic theories and means of tourism geography, evaluations of tourism resources and regional tourism development, tourism and environment changes, man-land relationships in tourism geography and so on. So far, the tourism geography research teams have published more than 600 academic papers at home and abroad in core journals. An academic paper reveals that Nanjing University stands first among all the universities and research institutes in China. At the end, six basic questions and their research tendency in tourism geography are discussed.
