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
bay
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
delta
gulf
lake
ocean
sea
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
- Bering Strait
- Strait of Messina
- Bab-el Mendeb Strait
- Strait of Malacca
- Strait of Dover
- 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
stream
oasis
- See Ancient Egypt outline
See also:
- Hydrology / water cycle
Land forms
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
- 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
Click EXPAND for a list of important capes
continent
island
archipelago
- a series of geographically proximate or geologically similarly island, usually formed in a chain or a cluster
isthmus
land-bridge
peninsula
Major world regions
- 12 major regions
- however, below for typical regions per continent
Americas
- North America
- Central America
- South America
- Caribbean
Asia
- West Asia
- East Asia
- South Asia
- Southeastern Asia
Africa
- East Africa
- North Africa
- West Africa
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- South Africa
Australia
Europe
- Eastern Europe
- Western Europe
- Scandinavia
Other major regions terminology
- Eurasia
- Mediterranean
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
- 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
- officially "Republic of Cabo Verde"
Fun Facts
- Pitcaren Islands in Polynesia, are the least populated political entity in the world (67 residents)
- Vatican City, for example, has 825 residents
- Rio de la Plata is the widest river in the world (max width: 140 mi)
- the Rio de la Plata is considered a river, estuary, gulf or "marginal sea"
- it is fed by the Uruguay and Parana rivers at Punta Gorda ("fat point"
Climate
Climate Zones
see also : [Climate (Geography)]