Current Geography Studies in Turkey

The main purpose of the study is to evaluate the master and doctoral theses completed in the field of geography in the National Thesis Center of Turkey YOK between 2020-2024 from a holistic perspective and to bring a new perspective to the studies to be conducted. In this context, a database consisting of thesis such as the year, subject, type, method, university of the author and the geographical region where the university is located was created. The database created was examined by subjecting it to a detailed analysis process. Within the scope of the study, a total of 876 graduate thesis were analysed. Of these thesis, 680 master programme and 196 belong to doctoral programme. Master thesis are more than doctoral thesis. The highest number of master thesis were produced in 2022, with 199 thesis. In contrast, a noticeable increasing trend is observed in doctoral thesis over the years. In both master (333) and doctoral (111) programmes, most thesis on human and economic geography were produced. This is followed by thesis on (master (262), doctoral (69)) physical geography. In human and economic geography, tourism geography (76) was studied the most compared to other subjects, while in physical geography, geomorphology (98) was studied the most. In terms of the methods used in the thesis, qualitative methods (298) are preferred more in master studies, while quantitative methods (102) are used more in doctoral thesis. Among the universities that produced the highest number of thesis, Atatürk University (59) stands out in master programme and Istanbul University (34) in doctoral programme. In the evaluation according to the geographical region of the university where the author is located, the Marmara Region ranks first in both master and doctoral programmes. These results will allow a better understanding of academic developments and trends in the field of geography and will be a direction for future research. In this context, the results of this study provide important findings on current geography theses in Turkey. According to the results of this study, it is thought that increasing the number of postgraduate thesis in the field of geography and improving the quantity and quality of students who want to do postgraduate education in the field can give a positive impetus to Turkey's development.