Portal:Geography

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Map of Earth

Map of Earth

Geography is the science that studies the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of the Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276–194 BC). Four historical traditions in geographical research are the spatial analysis of the natural and the human phenomena (geography as the study of distribution), the area studies (places and regions), the study of the human-land relationship, and research in the Earth sciences. Modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline that foremost seeks to understand the Earth and all of its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical science". Geography is divided into two main branches: human geography and physical geography.

More about geography…

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Zion Canyon at sunset in Zion National Park as seen from Angels Landing looking south
Zion National Park is a national park located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. In 1909, President William Howard Taft named the area a National Monument to protect the canyon, under the name of Mukuntuweap National Monument, and in 1918 the park's name was changed to Zion. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile (590 km2) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to half a mile (800 m) deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The lowest elevation is 3,666 ft (1,117 m) at Coalpits Wash and the highest elevation is 8,726 ft (2,660 m) at Horse Ranch Mountain. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park's unique geography and variety of life zones allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species as well as 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest. Human habitation of the area started about 8,000 years ago with small family groups of Native Americans. The park includes mountains, canyons, buttes, mesas, monoliths, rivers, slot canyons, and natural arches.

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Ruins of Gamleborg

  • ... that Gamleborg (fortress ruins pictured) represents Bornholm's oldest defence works?
  • ... that Chao Mae Tuptim in Bangkok is a site crammed full of wooden circumcised penis statues which are said to endow good fortune and fertility on anybody coming into contact with them?
  • ... that the Bab al-Nairab neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria, was originally a 13th-century gate planned by the Ayyubid ruler az-Zahir Ghazi, but built by his successor al-Aziz Muhammad?

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Lester Brain
Lester Brain was a pioneer Australian aviator and airline executive. Born in New South Wales, he trained with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) before joining Qantas as a pilot in 1924. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1929, after locating the lost aircraft Kookaburra in northern Australia. As a member of the RAAF reserve, Brain coordinated his airline's support for the Australian military during World War II. He earned a King's Commendation for his rescue efforts during an air raid on Broome, Western Australia in 1942, and was promoted to wing commander in 1944. Brain left Qantas to join the fledgling government-owned domestic carrier Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) in June 1946. Appointed its first General Manager, he swiftly built up the organisation to the stage where it could commence scheduled operations later in the year. By the time he resigned in March 1955, TAA was firmly established as one half of the Commonwealth government's two-airline system. After his departure from TAA, Brain became managing director of de Havilland Aircraft in Sydney, before joining the board of East-West Airlines as a consultant in January 1961. Appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in January 1979, Lester Brain died in June the following year, at the age of seventy-seven.

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Geography categories

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WikiProjects
Parent project
Descendant projects
Related projects
What are WikiProjects?

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Maid of the Mist
Credit: Photo: Saffron Blaze

One of the tour boats of the Maid of the Mist tour of Niagara Falls. The tour starts off at a calm part of the Niagara River (from both the American and Canadian sides) near the Rainbow Bridge, and takes its passengers past the American and Bridal Veil Falls, then into the dense mist of spray inside the curve of the Horseshoe Falls. The first Maid of the Mist was launched in 1846 as a ferry service between the Canadian and American sides, predating by two years the construction of the first Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge. However, with the opening of the bridge, the ferry service lost business, and by 1854, became a tourist attraction instead.

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Horace Walpole
Horace Walpole, letter to Sir Horace Mann (1774)

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Antarctica (orthographic projection).svg
Antarctica
Afro-Eurasia (orthographic projection).svg
Afro-Eurasia
Americas (orthographic projection).svg
Americas
Australia (orthographic projection).svg
Australia
Africa (orthographic projection).svg
Africa
Eurasia (orthographic projection).svg
Eurasia
North America (orthographic projection).svg
North America
Oceania (orthographic projection).svg
Oceania
Europe (orthographic projection).svg
Europe
Asia (orthographic projection).svg
Asia
South America (orthographic projection).svg
South America
Supercontinents:
Gondwana • Laurasia • Pangaea • Rodinia


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The following Wikimedia sister projects provide more on this subject:
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