Studying geography is critical, as it often underlies other types of studies which feature any other sort of social, environmental, cultural, or economic concern. The geographic implications of a problem are an inherent factor in any analysis, and its absence can lead to unrealistic conclusions. This leads to MAUP, or the “modifiable areal unit problem”, which states first that the scale or spatial resolution of spatial analysis can lead to different statistical results, and secondly that the way that data points are aggregated into clusters can lead to different statistical results. Therefore, MAUP describes a powerful statistical and geographical issue inherent in analyzing a list of geographical data points. The MAUP is an intrinsic characteristic of all physical and abstract geographic studies.

Another example of the importance of geographical analysis in studies is the Simpson’s paradox, also called the reversal paradox or the amalgamation paradox, which describes a situation in which related trends can be found in separate groups of data, but an opposing trend can be found when those groups are combined. In conclusion, an understanding of the geographical influence in a data set is often critical before any other social, environmental, or biological conclusions can be made about a scientific analysis.