Abstract:  Political Geography, a major branch of Geography, turned out to be an important field of study in the late Qing Dynasty as a result of national crisis. Founded by German geologist Friedrich Ratzel in 1897, Political Geography was mainly about the relationship between national organism and geographical space and later developed into Geopolitics by his student Rudolf Kjellén.In other words, modern Geography resulted from great geographical discoveries, but took on features of nationalism at the end of 19th century. Thus, it may acquire both features of progressivism of the early modern period and Darwin's philosophy of evolutionism. Both features influenced Chinese people and constituted an important part of their outlook on the history of civilization in the late Qing Dynasty.

Key words: geopolitics,  political geography, progressivism, evolutionism, national organism