Geography vocabulary
Geography Vocabulary
Five Themes of Geography
- Location
- Absolute Location
- Relative Location
- Regions
- Place
- Movement
- Human-Environment Interaction (Relationships within Places)
Map terminology
- Latitude
- Longitude
- Equator
- Prime Meridian
- International Dateline
- Meridians
- Parallels
- a.m. / p.m.
- equinox
- solstice
- Tropic of Cancer
- Tropic of Capricorn
Water bodies
- lake
- bay
- cape
- channel
- delta
- ocean
- sea
- strait & channel
- 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 it the "Pillars of Hercules"
- 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
- 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
- Bering Strait
- Strait of Messina
- Bab-el Mendeb Strait
- Strait of Malacca
- click expand to see list of important straits
- canals
- man-made straits
- 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
- conntected the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, built under the Sui dynasty (6th century AD)
- Suez Canal
- Panama Canal
Land forms
- continent
- island
- archipelago
- peninsula
- isthmus
- land-bridge
World Oceanic Regions
- Mediterranean
- Arabian Sea
- Indian Ocean
- Atlantic Ocean
- Pacific Ocean
- Gulf of Mexico
- Caribbean Sea
- China Sea
- North Sea
Oceania
- Oceania
- Pacific region in general, divided into
- Australasia
- Melanesia
- Micronesia
- Polynesia