Geography vocabulary

Revision as of 16:21, 10 March 2021 by Bromley (talk | contribs) (building up straits entries)

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 UN Geoscheme Regions
  • Oceania
    • Pacific region in general, divided into
  • Australasia
  • Melanesia
  • Micronesia
  • Polynesia