What is Geography, Anyway? {National Geography Awareness Week Fun & a Giveaway!}

It's National Geography Awareness Week, a perfect time to make geography the centerpiece of your homeschool. 

If this sounds daunting, it may help to visit how you define geography!  

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word “geography”? 

Maps? Globes? Carmen SanDiego?

You’re not alone—those are the three most common responses in our geography seminars!

What is geography, anyway?

Maybe this definition from the National Geographic Society will help:

Geography: "A knowledge of place names, location of cultural and physical features, distribution and patterns of languages, religions, economic activities, population and political systems. Physical regions and physical phenomena, such as tectonic activity, landform, climate, bodies of water, soils and flora and fauna. The changes in places and areas through time, including how people have modified the environment. Cartographers’ tools, such as maps, instruments, graphs and statistics, are also a part of geography."

Wow! Maybe a better question might be, “What isn’t geography?”

The word “geography” is from the Greek word geographia, meaning “writing about the earth.” The word “earth” used here is all-inclusive regarding people, places, and the relationships between people and the places where they live and interact. So first and foremost, throw out the thought that geography is simply knowing countries and capitals!

Geography can be broken into two main divisions: geography of the earth (physical geography) and geography of people who live here (human geography).

• Physical Geography includes everything about the earth itself; its make-up, its position, and its movement in the solar system, the moon, seasons, its heat energy from the sun, the atmosphere, all natural features of the earth, water, rocks (geology), weather patterns, and other natural processes that shape the world. See how this is intertwined with science?

• Human Geography is all about human lifestyles, beliefs, growth and development, the interactions of people to the earth itself and with other peoples who dwell here. It’s understanding where people live and why they live where they do, how they communicate, what they eat, how they dress, how they use their resources, how communities develop, and how people impact their own environment. It’s all about how these choices are related to the physical geography of the earth.

Geography is so all encompassing that it’s easy to incorporate within the context of most any other subject matter. Your students will remember geography better when it’s naturally associated with something familiar.

Now that you've had a glimpse into a definition of geography, onto the fun-- our National Geography Awareness Week Giveaway! 

Giveaway Fun

We're partnered with UnitStudies.com (read more about our connection here) to bring you a fun geography giveaway! 

So, are you asking, "What's in the giveaway?"  Drumroll... here it is! 

Bonus Fun -- National Geography Week Sale

Save 20% on our favorite Geography Resources!