A+ Club Lesson Planner & Study Guide

Geography vocabulary

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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
  • 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:
  • 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

archipelago

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

basin

butte

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

canyon

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)

hill

island

isthmus

land-bridge

mountain

peninsula

plateau

tectonic plates

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

Major world regions

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

Australia

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

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:

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