Geography vocabulary

Geography Vocabulary

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Five Themes of Geography

• Location
  • Absolute Location
  • Relative Location
• Regions
• Place
• Movement
• Human-Environment Interaction (Relationships within Places)
  • Cultural Diffusion
• See Social Studies Skills

Map terminology

• Latitude
• Longitude
• Equator
• Prime Meridian
• International Dateline
• Meridians
• Parallels
• a.m. / p.m.
• equinox
• solstice
• Tropic of Cancer
• Tropic of Capricorn

Physical Geography

• the study of the elements that constitute the earth's surface and how they interact
  • includes meteorology, which is the study of weather and weather prediction
• [Physical geography(wiki)]

Water bodies

canal

• man-made straits that connect two larger bodies of water
• canals provide important water passage to connect water bodies that would otherwise require long-distance water travel around land bodies or continents
  • usually canals are built across isthmuses

• Bahr Yussef
  • connects the Nile to the Faiyum Oasis and Lake Moeris, built 2300 BC
• Canal of the Pharaohs
  • connected the Nile to the Red Sea
  • built by Necho II, Assyrian ruler of Egypt in 7th century BC
  • Persian king Darius I bragged of building a canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea (6th century BC)
• Corinth Canal
• Grand Canal
  • connected the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, built under the Sui dynasty (6th century AD)
• Suez Canal
• Panama Canal

• Click EXPAND to see list of important canals

channel

• synonymous with "strait" but usually referring to a smaller or less important strait
• see strait below

strait

• a narrow body of water that connects larger bodies of water, or, a narrow channel that separates land masses
• synonymous with channel, passage, or pass
  • implicit in the terminology is that the strait allows for navigation, or passage, from one larger body of water to another
• "strait comes from Old French "estreit" for "tight" or "narrow"

• important straits and channels
• Bosporus Strait
  • connects Black Sea to Aegean/Mediterranean Seas
• Strait of Gibraltar
  • connects Mediterranean Sea to Atlantic Ocean
  • ancient Greeks called the promontories on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar the "Pillars of Hercules", which marked the passage from the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean
• Strait of Magellan
  • connects Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
  • the passageway near the southern tip of South America that was navigated by the explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who led the first expedition to circumnavigated the globe
  • the Strait of Magellan is not "straight" -- is actually a U-shaped pathway formed by the Tierra del Fuego archipelago (chain of islands)
• Beagle Channel
  • a second, less navigable passageway near the southern tip of South America that was navigated by Charles Darwin on the HMS Beagle
  • NOTE: the open-ocean passageway, around the very tip of South America is called "Drake's Passage", named for English explorer Francis Drake who circumnavigated the globe
• Strait of Hormuz
• Bass Strait
  • between Australia and Tasmania
• Bering Strait
• Strait of Messina
• Bab-el Mendeb Strait
• Strait of Malacca
• Strait of Dover
• Strait of Singapore
• See:
  • • [Strait (wiki)]
    • [Top 10 Straits and Channels (morethanshipping.com)]

• Click EXPAND to see list of important straits

river

• rivers flow downhill, usually but not always into an ocean
  • upstream v. downstream
• tributary
• estuary

• Gulf of Ob
  • world's longest estuary
  • fed by the Ob River and feeding into the Kara Sea (part of the Arctic Ocean)
• delta
• silt
• flow & discharge
  • measurement of the amount of water a river carries
• Ten longest rivers in the world
  • note: there is always a dispute over these lists as to the exact measurement
  • this list is derived from ** See [of rivers by length (wiki)]
    • which measures total length of river systems (i.e., includes tributaries)

• 1. Nile (Africa; flows into Mediterranean Sea)
• 2. Amazon (South America; flows into Atlantic Ocean)
• 3. Yangtze (China; flows into East China Sea
• 4. Mississippi (North America; flows into Gulf of Mexico)
• 5. Yenisei (Mongolia-Russia; flows into Kara Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean)
• 6. Yellow or Huang He (China; flows into Bohai Sea, part of the Yellow Sea)
• 7. Ob (northern-central Asia; flows into the Gulf of Ob, feeding into the Kara Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean)
• 8. Rio de la Plata-Parana (South America; flows into the Rio de la Plata estuary, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean)
• 9. Congo (Central Africa; flows into the Atlantic Ocean
• 10. Amur (northern-central Asia, flows into the Sea of Okhost, part of the Pacific Ocean)
• See also [Top 10 Largest Rivers in the world]

• Click EXPAND to see list of the ten longest rivers

oasis

• See Ancient Egypt outline

See also:

• Hydrology / water cycle

Land forms

archipelago

• a series of geographically proximate or geologically similarly island, usually formed in a chain or a cluster

cape

• a "headland", "promontory" or large body of land that extends into a larger water body, usually an ocean or a sea
  • "headland" is a "coastal landform," usually with a high point and cliffs
  • "promontory" is a raised land body that extends into lower land or water
    • promontories are often used a defensive positions for forts, castles and defensive positions
    • a promontory in water is a peninsula
• Click EXPAND for a list of important capes:

• Cape Canaveral - Florida
• Cape Cod - Massachusetts
• Cape Discord - Greenland
• Cape of Good Hope - South Africa
• Cape Horn - Chile
  • southernmost headland, or tip of land, on Hornos Island, one of the Hermite Islands, the southernmost of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago at the southern tip of South America
  • northern boundary of the Drake Passage
• Cape Kidnappers - New Zealand
• Cape Three Forks - Morocco
• Cape Vert - Senegal; the westernmost point of Africa

• See [List of Well Known Capes (wiki)]

continent

• largest continuous unit of a land form or land mass
• * except for Europe (and, thus Asia), continents have defined perimeters
• continents are defined by extent, separation, tectonic plates (some have multiple plates)
• click on EXPAND to see list of Continents

• ordered by size, largest to smallest:
• Asia
  • • may also include Europe, which would be "Eurasia"
• Africa
• North America
• South America
• Antarctica
• Europe
• Australia

• disputed continents
• Australia
  • sometimes considered world's largest island
• Europe
  • Europe is technically not a continent, but if so, neither is Asia
    • considered together, Europe + Asia = "Eurasia"
  • the concept of Europe as a continent is traditional and cultural, but still valid geographically
• click EXPAND for more on definition of Europe as a continent

• • • to the ancient Greeks, Europe was the "Land of the West"
    • and Asia was the "Land of the East:
    • and Africa was called "Libya"
  • as a continent, Europe is divided from Asia by
    • Ural Mountains (in Russia)
    • Bosporus Strait (at Constantinople, Turkey)

trench

• trench
  • a large, narrow (as compared to length) depression in the ground or underwater
  • trenches are caused by erosion, glaciers, or movement of tectonic plates
  • trenches can be on land or under water, such as the Mariana trench, deepest
  • smaller forms of a trench are called a "gully" or a "ditch"
  • larger trenches caused by tectonic plate movements are also called "rift valleys"
• volcano

volcano

• Sources:
• [Landform (National Geographic)]

Major world regions

• major regions
  • there are many regions and sub-regions and different sources will define these regions differently
  • we will list these regions per continent
• See [List of Physiographic Regions per continent (wiki)]

Americas

• North America
• Central America
• South America
• Caribbean

Asia

• Central Asia (Russian Asia, Mongolia)
• East Asia (China, Korea, Japan)
• South Asia (Indian sub-continent)
• Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Malyasia, Indonesia, etc.)
• West Asia (Middle East)

Africa

• East Africa
• North Africa
• West Africa
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• South Africa

Europe

• Eastern Europe
• Western Europe
• Scandinavia

Other major regions terminology

• Eurasia
• Mediterranean
• Latin America

World oceanic regions

• Mediterranean
• Arabian Sea
• Indian Ocean
• Atlantic Ocean
• Pacific Ocean
• Gulf of Mexico
• Caribbean Sea
• China Sea
• North Sea
• Macaronesia (Atlantic)

Oceania

Oceania UN Geoscheme Regions

• Oceania
  • Pacific region in general, divided into
• Australasia
• Melanesia
• Micronesia
• Polynesia
• List of independent nations of Oceania:

• Australia
• East Timor
• Federated States of Micronesia
• Fiji
• Indonesia
  • Only Papua, or Indonesian New Guinea is part of Oceania, whereas the rest of Indonesia is located in Southeast Asia
• Kiribati
• Marshall Islands
• Nauru
• New Zealand
• Palau
• Papua New Guinea
• Samoa
• Solomon Islands
• Tonga
• Tuvalu
• Vanuatu
• Also:
  • Cook Islands and Niue are "associated states" with New Zealand

• Click EXPAND to see list of independent nations of Oceana
• See [List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Oceania (wiki)]

Macaronesia

• island region in Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal and West Africa
  • volcanic islands
• Macaronesia consists of:
• Azores islands
  • Portuguese territories
• Canary Islands
  • Portuguese territories
• Madeira islands
  • Spanish territories
• Cape Verde
  • officially "Republic of Cabo Verde"
    • it won independence from Portugal in 1975
    • a democratic republic
  • named for Cape Vert in Senegal, which is directly east of Cape Verde
  • consists of 10 volcanic islands

Climate

Climate Zones

see also : [Climate (Geography)]

• Roaring Forties

Map prevailing winds on earth (wiki)

250pxClipperRoute Clipper Route (wiki)

• • westerly winds that cross from west to east along the southern hemisphere 40-50th parallels
  • the Roaring Forties aided age of sail shipping routes from south of Africa to Australia
  • and from Australia/New Zealand to the southern tip of South America

Geography Fun Facts & Oddities

See:

• Geography fun facts & oddities