Karl Raitz, professor, University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences Department of Geography, has been named the next Kentucky state geographer.

In this post appointed by the governor, Raitz will advise state agencies and officials on geographic matters, assist state and local officials with boundary studies, mapping, cartographic programs, planning, zoning and land-use studies, serve as a resource for teachers of geography and publishers of geography textbooks, and cooperate with geographers in other states to compile, analyze and disseminate geographic information. State geographers serve a term of one year.

Geography is more than the study of maps and locations. Geographers track demographics, social constructions of land use and economic, historical and environmental trends.

Raitz, a former chair of his department at UK, is a long-time student of culture and its material artifacts. He has spent the past 35 years examining the manner in which people have created American landscapes. His field-based research interests blend rural and urban contexts, especially within the American Midwest, Appalachia and the South. His past work includes examinations of the relationships between European immigrants and occupational pre-adaptation, the social construction of sport and leisure places, and the creation of landscape symbol vocabularies.

Raitz is currently working on several projects relating to the role of the roads as a shaping influence on landscapes. His research projects include "The National Road" and "A Guide to the National Road," two edited books that were supported by funding from the Pioneer American Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Raitz plans to continue studying road landscape themes with projects underway on America’s first two trans-Appalachian roads, the Limestone Road and the Wilderness Road, and a book co-edited with historian Warren Hofstra on The Shenandoah Valley Road. 

Allison Elliott - UK Public Relations