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A physical map of the Earth
Geography (from Greek: γεωγραφία, geographia, literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of the Earth and planets. The first person to use the word γεωγραφία was Eratosthenes (276–194 BC). Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but also how they have changed and come to be.
Geography is often defined in terms of two branches: human geography and physical geography. Human geography is concerned with the study of people and their communities, cultures, economies, and interactions with the environment by studying their relations with and across space and place. Physical geography is concerned with the study of processes and patterns in the natural environment like the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and geosphere.
The four historical traditions in geographical research are spatial analyses of natural and the human phenomena, area studies of places and regions, studies of human-land relationships, and the Earth sciences. Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical sciences". (Full article...)
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Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
- One of Molyneux's celestial globes, which is displayed in Middle Temple Library – from the frontispiece of the Hakluyt Society's 1889 reprint of A Learned Treatise of Globes, both Cœlestiall and Terrestriall, one of the English editions of Robert Hues' Latin work Tractatus de Globis (1594)
- The Central European borders of Brandenburg–Prussia (blue-green) and the Habsburg monarchy (red) in 1756, after Prussia's seizure of Silesia in the First Silesian War
- Map 1: Mysore and Coorg in a map of peninsular India showing shifting boundaries
- St. Mary Redcliffe from the northwest
- Clockwise from top left: New Zealand fur seal (Arctocephalus forsteri), southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina), Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus), walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) and grey seal (Halichoerus grypus)
- The title page of a 1634 version of Hues' Tractatus de globis in the collection of the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal
In this month
- 1 May 1960 – American pilot Gary Powers was shot down over Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia
- 30 May 1951 – Foundation of Canadian Association of Geographers in Montreal, Canada
- 3 May 1906 – Birth of Milton Santos, Brazilian geographer who had a degree in law
- 20 May 1506 – Death of Christopher Columbus (pictured), explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy
Vital article
Vital articles to understand Geography.
Europe is a continent, also recognised as a part of Eurasia, located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. Comprising the westernmost peninsulas of Eurasia, it shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Asia and Africa. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. Although much of this border is over land, Europe is almost always recognised as its own continent because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. (Full article...)
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Selected pictures
- Map: Strebe, using GeocartThe azimuthal equidistant projection is an azimuthal map projection in which all points on the map are both proportionately correct distances from the center point and at the correct azimuth (direction) from the center point. Distances and directions to all places, however, are true only from the center point of projection. This projection has been used for the flag of the United Nations, for the USGS National Atlas of the United States of America, and for large-scale mapping of Micronesia, among others.
- A satellite image of the Scandinavian Peninsula in winter. The peninsula, approximately 1,850 kilometers (1,150 miles) long with a width varying between approximately 370–805 km (230–500 mi), making it the largest in Europe, is located in the northern part of the continent and consists of Norway, Sweden and part of Finland. Much of the population is concentrated in the southern part of the peninsula; Stockholm and Gothenburg, both in Sweden, and Oslo in Norway are the largest cities.
- Image: Chris RywaltAn animation showing the unfolding of a Dymaxion map, a projection of a world map onto the surface of a polyhedron (in this case, an icosahedron) and then flattened to form a two-dimensional map which retains most of the relative proportional integrity of the globe map. This type of map was invented by Buckminster Fuller and is one of several of his inventions to use the name Dymaxion.
- Map: Strebe, using GeocartThe Lambert conformal conic projection is a conic map projection used for aeronautical charts, portions of the State Plane Coordinate System, and many national and regional mapping systems. It is one of seven projections introduced by Johann Heinrich Lambert in 1772. Conceptually, the projection seats a cone over the sphere of the Earth and projects the surface conformally onto the cone. The cone is unrolled, and the parallel that was touching the sphere is assigned unit scale. By scaling the resulting map, two parallels can be assigned unit scale, with scale decreasing between them and increasing outside them. Unlike other conic projections, no true secant form of this projection exists.
- Map: Strebe, using GeocartThe Peirce quincuncial projection is a conformal map projection developed by Charles Sanders Peirce in 1879, while he was working at the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. In the normal aspect Peirce's projection presents the Northern Hemisphere in a square; the Southern Hemisphere is split into four 90°–45°–45° triangles surrounding it so that the whole map forms a larger square.
- Daedongyeojido is a large scale map of Korea produced by Chosun Dynasty cartographer and geologist Kim Jeong-ho in 1861. Considered to mark the zenith of pre-modern Korean cartography, the map consists of 22 separate, foldable booklets, each covering approximately 47 kilometres (29 mi) (north-south) by 31.5 kilometres (19.6 mi) (east-west). Combined, they form a map of Korea that is 6.7 metres (22 ft) wide and 3.8 metres (12 ft) long. Daedongyeojido is praised for precise delineations of mountain ridges, waterways, and transportation routes, as well as its markings for settlements, administrative areas, and cultural sites.
- Map credit: Robert WilkinsonAn 18th century map of the Iberian Peninsula illustrating various topographic features of the land. The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe, and includes modern day Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra.
- Photo: NASAA composite satellite image of the continent of North America in orthographic projection. North America occupies the northern portion of the landmass generally known as the Americas, with its southern border at the Darién watershed along the Colombia–Panama border. The vast majority of North America rests on the North American Plate, while small parts of California and western Mexico rest on the Pacific Plate; Central America and the Caribbean islands rest on the Caribbean Plate.
- Map: Strebe, using GeocartA gnomonic projection of a portion of the northern hemisphere, centered on the geographic North Pole. Such projections display all great circles as straight lines, resulting in any line segment on a gnomonic map showing the shortest route between the segment's two endpoints.
- Map: Strebe, using GeocartThe Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection presented by the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. Because it represents paths of constant course as straight lines, it long served as the standard map projection for nautical purposes. However, it distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases: thus areas in the mid-latitudes appear significantly larger than their actual size relative to those the equator, and those near the poles are even more exaggerated. Most modern atlases no longer use the Mercator projection for world maps or for areas distant from the equator, preferring other cylindrical projections, or forms of equal-area projection.
- The geography of Australia, the world's smallest continent, encompasses a wide variety of biogeographic regions. By surface area, it is the sixth-largest country in the world, but as can be seen in this composite satellite image, much of the interior is arid desert. The vast majority of the human population is concentrated along the eastern and southeastern coasts, and it is the fiftieth most populous nation.
- Map: Strebe, using GeocartThe equirectangular projection is a simple map projection attributed to Marinus of Tyre, who Ptolemy claims invented the projection about AD 100. The projection maps meridians to vertical straight lines of constant spacing, and circles of latitude to horizontal straight lines of constant spacing. The projection is neither equal area nor conformal. Because of the distortions introduced by this projection, it has few applications beyond base imagery to be reprojected to some more useful projection.
- Photo: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASAA satellite photo of Great Britain and part of Ireland showing the extent of snow cover during the winter of 2009–2010, the coldest in Europe since 1981–82. Starting on 16 December 2009 a persistent weather pattern brought cold moist air from the north with systems undergoing cyclogenesis from North American storms moving across the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and saw many parts of Europe experiencing heavy snowfall and record low temperatures.
- Map: Strebe, using GeocartThe General Perspective projection is a map projection used in cartography in which the Earth is depicted as viewed from a finite distance above its surface. If the view precisely faces the center of the Earth, the projection is a vertical perspective projection; otherwise, it is a tilted perspective projection. Here is shown a vertical perspective from an altitude of 35,786 km over (0°, 90°W), corresponding to a view from geostationary orbit. Due to the horizon as seen from the viewpoint position, the projection always shows less than half of the Earth's surface: in this case neither of the North and South Poles is visible.
- Map: Strebe, using GeocartThe Littrow projection, created by Joseph Johann Littrow in 1838, is a conformal retroazimuthal map projection. It allows direct measurement of the azimuth from any point on the map to the center.
Featured biography
Featured biography articles in geography
Hakluyt depicted in stained glass in the west window of the south transept of Bristol Cathedral – Charles Eamer Kempe, c. 1905.
Richard Hakluyt (/ˈhæklʊt, ˈhæklət, ˈhækəlwɪt/; 1553 – 23 November 1616) was an English writer. He is known for promoting the English colonisation of North America through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) and The Principall Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation (1589–1600).
Hakluyt was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. Between 1583 and 1588 he was chaplain and secretary to Sir Edward Stafford, English ambassador at the French court. An ordained priest, Hakluyt held important positions at Bristol Cathedral and Westminster Abbey and was personal chaplain to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, principal Secretary of State to Elizabeth I and James I. He was the chief promoter of a petition to James I for letters patent to colonise Virginia, which were granted to the London Company and Plymouth Company (referred to collectively as the Virginia Company) in 1606. The Hakluyt Society, which publishes scholarly editions of primary records of voyages and travels, was named after him in its 1846 formation. (Full article...)More featured biographies
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Did you know
Did you know it about Geography?
- ... that glaciation in Wisconsin 17 thousand years ago helped create its unique geography?
- ... that the dark and fatalistic humour of Canadian comedians has been attributed to the dangers of Canada's climate and geography?
- ... that during the collision of India with Asia, the southern part of the Tibetan Plateau achieved its high elevation before the northern part?
- ... that Johann Reinhold Forster's 1778 book Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World has been described as "the beginning of modern geography"?
- ... that although Constance Kies was a nutrition scientist, she majored in English, and minored in history, geography, library science, and home economics?
- ... that the first known paravian dinosaurs were from China, but they now live on every continent?
Places around you
Top 10 WikiProject Geography Popular articles of the month
This following Geography-related articles is a most visited articles of WikiProject Geography, See complete list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography/Popular pages.
- A map of the United States showing its 50 states, federal district and five inhabited territories. Note that Alaska, Hawaii, and territories are shown at different scales and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.
- Europe is a continent, also recognised as a part of Eurasia, located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. Comprising the westernmost peninsulas of Eurasia, it shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Asia and Africa. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. Although much of this border is over land, Europe is almost always recognised as its own continent because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. (Full article...)
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