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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.

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Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River. An average of one million people visit the park each year. Everglades is the third-largest national park in the contiguous United States after Death Valley and Yellowstone. UNESCO declared the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve in 1976 and listed the park as a World Heritage Site in 1979, and the Ramsar Convention included the park on its list of Wetlands of International Importance in 1987. Everglades is one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists.

Most national parks preserve unique geographic features; Everglades National Park was the first created to protect a fragile ecosystem. The Everglades are a network of wetlands and forests fed by a river flowing 0.25 miles (0.40 km) per day out of Lake Okeechobee, southwest into Florida Bay. The park is the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America and contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere. Thirty-six threatened or protected species inhabit the park, including the Florida panther, the American crocodile, and the West Indian manatee, along with 350 species of birds, 300 species of fresh and saltwater fish, 40 species of mammals, and 50 species of reptiles. The majority of South Florida's fresh water, which is stored in the Biscayne Aquifer, is recharged in the park. (Full article...)
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Laguna del Maule is a volcanic field in the Andes mountain range of Chile, close to, and partly overlapping, the Argentina–Chile border. The bulk of the volcanic field is in the Talca Province of Chile's Maule Region. It is a segment of the Southern Volcanic Zone, part of the Andean Volcanic Belt. The volcanic field covers an area of 500 km² (190 sq mi) and features at least 130 volcanic vents. Volcanic activity has generated cones, lava domes, lava coulees and lava flows, which surround the Laguna del Maule lake. The field gets its name from the lake, which is also the source of the Maule River.

The field's volcanic activity began 1.5 million years ago during the Pleistocene era; such activity has continued into the postglacial and Holocene era after glaciers retreated from the area. Postglacial volcanic activity has included eruptions with simultaneous explosive and effusive components, as well as eruptions with only one component. In the postglacial era, volcanic activity has increased at Laguna del Maule, with the volcanic field rapidly inflating during the Holocene. Three major caldera-forming eruptions took place in the volcanic field prior to the last glacial period. The most recent eruptions in the volcanic field took place 2,500 ± 700, 1,400 ± 600 and 800 ± 600 years ago and generated lava flows; today geothermal phenomena occur at Laguna del Maule. Volcanic rocks in the field include basalt, andesite, dacite and rhyolite; the latter along with rhyodacite makes up most of the Holocene rocks. In pre-Columbian times, the field was a regionally important source of obsidian. (Full article...)
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Macedonia (/ˌmæsɪˈdoʊniə/ (listen); Greek: Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (/ˈmæsɪdɒn/), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, which was followed by the Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties. Home to the ancient Macedonians, the earliest kingdom was centered on the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, and bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south.

Before the 4th century BC, Macedonia was a small kingdom outside of the area dominated by the great city-states of Athens, Sparta and Thebes, and briefly subordinate to Achaemenid Persia. During the reign of the Argead king Philip II (359–336 BC), Macedonia subdued mainland Greece and the Thracian Odrysian kingdom through conquest and diplomacy. With a reformed army containing phalanxes wielding the sarissa pike, Philip II defeated the old powers of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. Philip II's son Alexander the Great, leading a federation of Greek states, accomplished his father's objective of commanding the whole of Greece when he destroyed Thebes after the city revolted. During Alexander's subsequent campaign of conquest, he overthrew the Achaemenid Empire and conquered territory that stretched as far as the Indus River. For a brief period, his Macedonian Empire was the most powerful in the world – the definitive Hellenistic state, inaugurating the transition to a new period of Ancient Greek civilization. Greek arts and literature flourished in the new conquered lands and advances in philosophy, engineering, and science spread throughout much of the ancient world. Of particular importance were the contributions of Aristotle, tutor to Alexander, whose writings became a keystone of Western philosophy. (Full article...)
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Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851, making it the fifth-largest city in Michigan. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Washtenaw County. Ann Arbor is also included in the larger Greater Detroit Combined Statistical Area.

Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan. The university significantly shapes Ann Arbor's economy as it employs about 30,000 workers, including about 12,000 in the medical center. The city's economy is also centered on high technology, with several companies drawn to the area by the university's research and development infrastructure. (Full article...)
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Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog that makes up part of the City of Salford, Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Warrington and Trafford MBC in Greater Manchester and Cheshire England. North of the Manchester Ship Canal and River Mersey, five miles (8 km) to the west of Manchester, it occupies an area of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km²).

As it might be recognised today, Chat Moss is thought to be about 7,000 years old, but peat development seems to have begun there with the ending of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. The depth of peat ranges from 24 to 30 feet (7 to 9 m). A great deal of reclamation work has been carried out, particularly during the 19th century, but a large-scale network of drainage channels is still required to keep the land from reverting to bog. In 1958 workers extracting peat discovered the severed head of what is believed to be a Romano-British Celt, possibly a sacrificial victim, in the eastern part of the bog near Worsley. (Full article...)
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Screenshot of gameplay (1977 version)

Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as Adventure or ADVENT) is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of areas, and the player moves between these areas and interacts with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake.

The original game, written in 1975 and 1976, was based on Crowther's maps and experiences caving in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the longest cave system in the world, and was intended in part to be accessible to non-technical players such as his two daughters. Woods' version expanded the game in size and increased the amount of fantasy elements present in it, such as a dragon and magic spells. Both versions, typically played over teleprinters connected to mainframe computers, were spread around the nascent ARPANET, the precursor to the internet, which Crowther was involved in developing. (Full article...)
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Clockwise from top: Manchester city centre as seen from a distance of approximately 12 miles (19.5 kilometres) in Alderley Edge, Beetham Tower, Manchester Civil Justice Centre, Midland Hotel, One Angel Square, Manchester Town Hall

Manchester (/ˈmæntʃɪstər, -tʃɛs-/) is the most-populous city and metropolitan borough in North West England and Greater Manchester, England. The city has the country's fifth-largest population at 547,627 (as of 2018), lying within the United Kingdom's second-most populous urban area with a population of 2.7 million and the third most-populous county at around 2.8 million. It is fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east. The city is surrounded by outlying towns and the neighbouring city of Salford. These two cities and the surrounding towns form a large continuous conurbation. The local authority for the city is Manchester City Council. Manchester is one of the claimants to the unofficial title of "second city of the United Kingdom".

The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium or Mancunium, which was established in about AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Although historically and traditionally a part of Lancashire, areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century. The first to be included, Wythenshawe, was added to the city in 1931. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township, but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. Manchester achieved city status in 1853. The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, creating the Port of Manchester and directly linking the city to the Irish Sea, 36 miles (58 km) to the west. Its fortune declined after the Second World War, owing to deindustrialisation, but the IRA bombing in 1996 led to extensive investment and regeneration. Following successful redevelopment after the IRA bombing, Manchester was the host city for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. (Full article...)
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Intersection of Routes 11 and 277 in the center of town

Stephens City (/ˈstiːvənz/ STEE-vənz) is an incorporated town in the southern part of Frederick County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 1,829 at the time of the 2010 census. and an estimated population in 2018 of 2,041.
Founded by Peter Stephens in the 1730s, the colonial town was chartered and named for Lewis Stephens in October 1758. It was originally settled by German Protestants from Heidelberg. Stephens City is the second-oldest municipality in the Shenandoah Valley after nearby Winchester, which is about 5 miles (8 km) to the north. "Crossroads", the first free black community in the Valley in the pre-Civil War years, was founded east of town in the 1850s. Crossroads remained until the beginning of the Civil War when the freed blacks either escaped or were recaptured. Stephens City was saved from intentional burning in 1864 by Union Major Joseph K. Stearns. The town has gone through several name changes in its history, starting as "Stephensburg", then "Newtown", and finally winding up as "Stephens City", though it nearly became "Pantops". Interstate 81 and U.S. Route 11 pass close to and through the town, respectively.

A large section of the center of the town, including buildings and homes, covering 65 acres (26 ha), is part of the Newtown–Stephensburg Historic District and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. Stephens City celebrated its 250th anniversary on October 12, 2008. The town is a part of the Winchester, Virginia-West Virginia Metropolitan Statistical Area, an offshoot of the Washington–Baltimore–Northern Virginia, DC–MD–VA–WV Combined Statistical Area. It is a member of the Winchester–Frederick County Metropolitan Planning Organization. (Full article...)
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Antarctica (/ænˈtɑːrktɪkə/ (listen)) is Earth's southernmost continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being nearly twice the size of Australia, and has an area of 14,200,000 km² (5,500,000 sq mi). Most of Antarctica is covered by ice, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi).

Antarctica is on average the coldest, driest, and windiest of the continents, and has the highest average elevation. It is mainly a polar desert, with annual precipitation of 200 mm (8 in) along the coast and far less inland. About 70% of the world's freshwater reserves are frozen there, which if melted would raise global sea levels by over 60 metres (200 ft). Antarctica holds the record for the lowest measured temperature on Earth, −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F). The average temperature for the third quarter (the coldest part of the year) is −63 °C (−81 °F). Native species of animals include mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Vegetation consists of tundra. (Full article...)
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Kigali (Kinyarwanda pronunciation: [ci.ɡɑ́.ɾi]) is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is near the nation's geographic centre in a region of rolling hills, with a series of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. The city has been Rwanda's economic, cultural, and transport hub since it became the capital following independence from Belgian rule in 1962.

In an area controlled by the Kingdom of Rwanda from the 17th century and then by the German Empire, the city was founded in 1907 when Richard Kandt, the colonial resident, chose the site for his headquarters, citing its central location, views and security. Foreign merchants began to trade in the city during the German era, and Kandt opened some government-run schools for Tutsi Rwandan students. Belgium took control of Rwanda and Burundi during World War I, forming the mandate of Ruanda-Urundi. Kigali remained the seat of colonial administration for Rwanda but Ruanda-Urundi's capital was at Usumbura (now Bujumbura) in Burundi and Kigali remained a small city with a population of just 6,000 at the time of independence. (Full article...)
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Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California–Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park boundaries include Death Valley, the northern section of Panamint Valley, the southern section of Eureka Valley and most of Saline Valley. The park occupies an interface zone between the arid Great Basin and Mojave deserts, protecting the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and its diverse environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, badlands, valleys, canyons and mountains. Death Valley is the largest national park in the contiguous United States, as well as the hottest, driest and lowest of all the national parks in the United States. It contains Badwater Basin, the second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. More than 93% of the park is a designated wilderness area. The park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment including creosote bush, Joshua tree, bighorn sheep, coyote, and the Death Valley pupfish, a survivor from much wetter times. UNESCO included Death Valley as the principal feature of its Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve in 1984.

A series of Native American groups inhabited the area from as early as 7000 BC, most recently the Timbisha around 1000 AD who migrated between winter camps in the valleys and summer grounds in the mountains. A group of European Americans, trapped in the valley in 1849 while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, gave the valley its name, even though only one of their group died there. Several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax, which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams. The valley later became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies. Tourism expanded in the 1920s when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994. (Full article...)
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Taapaca is a Holocene volcanic complex in northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. Located in the Chilean Andes, it is part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andean Volcanic Belt, one of four distinct volcanic chains in South America. The town of Putre lies at the southwestern foot of the volcano.

Like other volcanoes of the Central Volcanic Zone, Taapaca formed from the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South America Plate. It lies on the western margin of the Altiplano high plateau, on top of older volcanic and sedimentary units. Taapaca has mainly erupted dacite, in the form of numerous lava domes, although an andesitic stratovolcano is also present. (Full article...)
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Mauna Loa (/ˌmɔːnə ˈloʊ.ə/ or /ˌmaʊnə ˈloʊ.ə/; Hawaiian: [ˈmɐwnə ˈlowə]; English: Long Mountain) is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi in the Pacific Ocean. The largest subaerial volcano in both mass and volume, Mauna Loa has historically been considered the largest volcano on Earth, dwarfed only by Tamu Massif. It is an active shield volcano with relatively gentle slopes, with a volume estimated at 18,000 cubic miles (75,000 km³), although its peak is about 125 feet (38 m) lower than that of its neighbor, Mauna Kea. Lava eruptions from Mauna Loa are silica-poor and very fluid, and they tend to be non-explosive.

Mauna Loa has probably been erupting for at least 700,000 years, and may have emerged above sea level about 400,000 years ago. The oldest-known dated rocks are not older than 200,000 years. The volcano's magma comes from the Hawaii hotspot, which has been responsible for the creation of the Hawaiian island chain over tens of millions of years. The slow drift of the Pacific Plate will eventually carry Mauna Loa away from the hotspot within 500,000 to one million years from now, at which point it will become extinct. (Full article...)
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The last picture ever taken of Johnston, 13 hours before his death at the eruption site.

David Alexander Johnston (December 18, 1949 – May 18, 1980) was an American United States Geological Survey (USGS) volcanologist who was killed by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in the U.S. state of Washington. A principal scientist on the USGS monitoring team, Johnston was killed in the eruption while manning an observation post six miles (10 km) away on the morning of May 18, 1980. He was the first to report the eruption, transmitting "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" before he was swept away by a lateral blast; despite a thorough search, Johnston's body was never found, but state highway workers discovered remnants of his USGS trailer in 1993.

Johnston's career took him across the United States, where he studied the Augustine Volcano in Alaska, the San Juan volcanic field in Colorado, and long-extinct volcanoes in Michigan. Johnston was a meticulous and talented scientist, known for his analyses of volcanic gases and their relationship to eruptions. This, along with his enthusiasm and positive attitude, made him liked and respected by many co-workers. After his death, other scientists lauded his character, both verbally and in dedications and letters. Johnston felt scientists must do what is necessary, including taking risks, to help protect the public from natural disasters. His work, and that of fellow USGS scientists, convinced authorities to close Mount St. Helens to the public before the 1980 eruption. They maintained the closure despite heavy pressure to re-open the area; their work saved thousands of lives. His story became intertwined with the popular image of volcanic eruptions and their threat to society, and a part of volcanology's history. To date, Johnston, along with Harry Glicken, is one of two American volcanologists known to have died in a volcanic eruption. (Full article...)
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The siege of Nice by a Franco-Ottoman fleet in 1543 (drawing by Toselli, after an engraving by Aeneas Vico)

The Italian War of 1542–1546 was a conflict late in the Italian Wars, pitting Francis I of France and Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Henry VIII of England. The course of the war saw extensive fighting in Italy, France, and the Low Countries, as well as attempted invasions of Spain and England. The conflict was inconclusive and ruinously expensive for the major participants.

The war arose from the failure of the Truce of Nice, which ended the Italian War of 1536–1538, to resolve the long-standing conflict between Charles and Francis—particularly their conflicting claims to the Duchy of Milan. Having found a suitable pretext, Francis once again declared war against his perpetual enemy in 1542. Fighting began at once throughout the Low Countries; the following year saw the Franco-Ottoman alliance's attack on Nice, as well as a series of maneuvers in northern Italy which culminated in the bloody Battle of Ceresole. Charles and Henry then proceeded to invade France, but the long sieges of Boulogne-sur-Mer and Saint-Dizier prevented a decisive offensive against the French. (Full article...)

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In this month

1 March 1910 – Saltspring Island re-titled to its current name according to records of Geographic Board of Canada
1 March 2007 – February–March 2007 tornado outbreak (pictured) hit Americus, Georgia, United States
9 March 1969 – Death of Walter Christaller, German geographer whose principal contribution to the discipline is Central Place Theory
25 March 1979 – Minor district in Bueng Sam Phan District, Thailand upgraded to full district

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Vital article

Vital articles to understand Geography.

A city is a large human settlement. It can be defined as a permanent and densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, production of goods, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organisations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving efficiency of goods and service distribution. (Full article...)

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Selected pictures

Image 1
Equirectangular projection
Map: Strebe, using Geocart
The 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.
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Craig retroazimuthal projection
Map: Strebe, using Geocart
The Craig retroazimuthal is a modified cylindrical map projection created by James Ireland Craig in 1909. It preserves the direction from any place to one other, predetermined place while avoiding some of the distortion of the Hammer retroazimuthal projection. This projection is sometimes known as the Mecca projection because Craig, who had worked in Egypt as a cartographer, created it to help Muslims find the qibla.
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Image 3
Mount Everest
Photo credit: Luca Galuzzi
The north face of Mount Everest, as seen from Tibet. Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, as measured by the height of its summit above sea level, which is 8,848 metres (29,029 ft). In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon recommendation of Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India at the time.
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Image 4
Hobo–Dyer projection
Map: Strebe, using Geocart
The Hobo–Dyer projection is a cylindrical equal-area projection commissioned in 2002 by Bob Abramms and Howard Bronstein. This projection was drafted by cartographer Mick Dyer, who based it on the 1910 Behrmann projection.
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Aitoff projection
Map: Strebe, using Geocart
The Aitoff projection is a modified azimuthal map projection first proposed by David A. Aitoff in 1889. Based on the equatorial form of the azimuthal equidistant projection, Aitoff halved longitudes from the central meridian, projected by the azimuthal equidistant, and then stretched the result horizontally into a 2:1 ellipse.
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Natural Earth projection
Map: Strebe, using the Geocart map projection software
A map of the world using the Natural Earth projection, a pseudocylindrical projection which is neither conformal nor equal-area. The projection was designed by Tom Patterson, an American cartographer with the National Park Service who has developed several open-source tools and base maps for cartographers.

This map is a derivative of NASA's Blue Marble summer month composite, with oceans lightened to enhance legibility and contrast.
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Image 7
Mitchell Map
Author: John Mitchell; scan: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
The Mitchell Map is the most comprehensive map of eastern North America made during the colonial era. Measuring about 6.5 ft (2.0 m) wide by 4.5 ft (1.4 m) high, it was produced by John Mitchell in 1757 in eight separate sheets. The map was used during the Treaty of Paris for defining the boundaries of the United States, and remains important today for resolving border disputes.
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Image 8
Olmec heartland
Map: Madman2001
A map of the Olmec heartland, the southern portion of Mexico's Gulf Coast region between the Tuxtla mountains and the Olmec archaeological site of La Venta. It is considered the heartland of the Olmec culture, which was widespread over Mesoamerica from 1400 BCE until roughly 400 BCE.

On this map, yellow dots represent ancient habitation sites, including San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, La Venta, and Tres Zapotes. Red dots represent isolated artifact finds unassociated with any ancient town or village, such as the Las Limas Monument 1, the San Martín Pajapan Monument 1, and "The Wrestler".
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Image 9
Sahara
Image credit: NASA
A satellite image of the Sahara, the world's largest hot desert and second largest desert after Antarctica at over 9,000,000 km² (3,500,000 mi²), almost as large as the United States. The Sahara is located in Northern Africa and is 2.5 million years old.
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Image 10
Edwards Air Force Base
Photo credit: NASA
The world's largest compass rose, drawn on the desert floor at Edwards Air Force Base in California, United States. Painted on the dry lake near Dryden Flight Research Center, it is inclined to magnetic north and is used by pilots for calibrating heading indicators.
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Image 11
Mollweide projection
Map: Strebe, using Geocart
The Mollweide projection is an equal-area, pseudocylindrical map projection generally used for global maps of the world or night sky. The projection was first published by mathematician and astronomer Karl Mollweide of Leipzig in 1805 but reinvented and popularized in 1857 by Jacques Babinet. The projection trades accuracy of angle and shape for accuracy of proportions in area, and as such is used where that property is needed, such as maps depicting global distributions.
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Image 12
Americae Sive Quartae Orbis Partis Nova Et Exactissima Descriptio
Map: Diego Gutiérrez and Hieronymus Cock
Americae Sive Quartae Orbis Partis Nova Et Exactissima Descriptio is an ornate geographical map of the Americas made in 1562 by Spanish cartographer Diego Gutiérrez and Flemish artist Hieronymus Cock. The map encompasses the eastern coast of North America, the whole of Central and South America, and parts of the western coasts of Europe and Africa. This is the earliest scale wall map of the New World and the first to use the name "California". Two extant copies are known.
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Image 13
Winter of 2009–2010 in Europe
Photo: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA
A 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.
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Image 14
Mercator projection
Map: Strebe, using Geocart
The 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.
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Image 15
Littrow projection
Map: Strebe, using Geocart
The 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.
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Featured biography

Featured biography articles in geography

Wallace in 1895

Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858. This prompted Darwin to publish On the Origin of Species.

Like Darwin, Wallace did extensive fieldwork—first in the Amazon River basin, and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line, which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia. He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography". (Full article...)

More featured biographies
Pierre Rossier Zhang Heng Edward Wright (mathematician) Emery Molyneux Daniel Boone Albert Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield Caspar David Friedrich Robert Hues Mary Anning Edward Drinker Cope Georg Forster David A. Johnston Richard Hakluyt James Tod Shen Kuo Fridtjof Nansen Clements Markham

Did you know

Did you know it about 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 although Constance Kies was a nutrition scientist, she majored in English, and minored in history, geography, library science, and home economics?
... that glaciation in Wisconsin 17 thousand years ago helped create its unique geography?
... 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 the first known paravian dinosaurs were from China, but they now live on every continent?