Geography · Kindergarten–Grade 8 · Quick reference
Geography(Maps · Land · World)
Grades K–83 pages
Map skills and the grid of the globe, landforms, water and climate, the continents, oceans and world records, the fifty states and capitals with the regions of the United States, the explorers, and why ports and cities stand where they do.
1Map skills2Land & climate3The world4United States5Explorers & cities
1Map SkillsK–8 · reading and making maps
Parts of a map
Title (what it shows) · key / legend (what the symbols mean) · compass rose (which way is north) · scale (1 inch = 50 miles) · grid (letters and numbers, or latitude and longitude). A map is a picture of a place from above, a bird’s-eye view; a globe is a small round earth.
Directions
- Cardinal: North, East, South, West, clockwise (“Never Eat Soggy Waffles”). Intermediate: NE, SE, SW, NW.
- The sun rises in the east and sets in the west; at noon it is south (in the northern hemisphere). A magnet points north.
- Bearings: N = 0°, E = 90°, S = 180°, W = 270°. Orienteering: set the map to north, take a bearing, pace the distance.
| Line | Degrees | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Equator | 0° latitude | divides northern and southern hemispheres; hot |
| Tropic of Cancer | 23.5°N | sun overhead in June |
| Tropic of Capricorn | 23.5°S | sun overhead in December |
| Arctic / Antarctic Circle | 66.5°N / S | midnight sun, polar night |
| Prime Meridian | 0° longitude | Greenwich; divides eastern and western hemispheres |
| International Date Line | 180° | a new day begins |
| North / South Pole | 90°N / 90°S | the ends of the axis |
Latitude lines lie flat like ladder rungs (parallels); longitude lines run pole to pole (meridians). Say latitude first: 40°N, 74°W. Time zones: 24 zones of 15°, one hour apart, set in 1883 for the railroads.
Topographic maps (grades 6, 8)
- Contour lines join points of equal height; the contour interval is the step between them. Close lines = steep; far apart = gentle; a V points upstream where lines cross a river.
- Draw a profile by plotting heights along a line.
- A flat map must stretch somewhere: Mercator stretches the poles (Greenland looks as big as Africa).
GPS and GIS
GPS: satellites broadcast the time; a phone measures how long each signal took from four or more satellites and fixes its place. GIS stacks map layers (roads, rivers, elevation, people) by coordinates; QGIS is free. Old maps and new maps compared show how a city grew.
2Landforms, Water & ClimateK–6 · the shape of the land
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| mountain / hill | high land; a range is a chain; a pass is a low way through |
| plateau | high flat land |
| plain / prairie | low flat land; grassland |
| valley | low land between hills; a canyon is a deep, steep valley |
| island | land with water all around |
| peninsula | land with water on three sides (Florida, Italy) |
| isthmus | narrow land joining two larger (Panama) |
| cape | a point of land into the sea |
| desert | under 10 inches of rain a year; hot or cold |
| coast / beach | where land meets sea |
| delta | fan of mud where a river meets the sea (Nile, Mississippi) |
| glacier | a slow river of ice |
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| source → mouth | where a river starts → where it ends |
| tributary | a river that joins a bigger one; a confluence is the joining |
| floodplain | flat land a river floods |
| lake / pond | water with land all around; fresh |
| sea / ocean | salt water; a gulf or bay is sea reaching into land |
| strait | narrow water joining two seas (Gibraltar) |
| harbor | sheltered water for ships |
| spring / well / aquifer | water that comes up / is dug for / is stored in rock |
The water cycle
Evaporation → condensation (clouds) → precipitation (rain, snow) → rivers run to the sea → springs and wells. Rivers at work: weathering breaks rock, erosion carries it, deposition builds deltas and floodplains.
Climate
- Weather is today; climate is the pattern over years.
- Latitude: near the equator the sun strikes straight down (hot); near the poles it slants (cold). Four seasons in between.
- Altitude: higher is colder (snow on Kilimanjaro at the equator).
- Rain shadow: wet on the windward side of mountains, dry behind.
- Oceans: the Gulf Stream warms Europe; gyres circle the oceans; the moon makes two tides a day.
- Köppen zones: tropical, dry, temperate, continental, polar.
| Biome | Marks |
|---|---|
| Tropical rain forest | hot, wet, layered, most kinds of life |
| Desert | dry; cactus, camel |
| Grassland / savanna | grass; herds |
| Temperate forest | four seasons, broadleaf trees |
| Taiga | cold evergreen forest |
| Tundra / ice | frozen ground, no trees |
3The World: Continents, Oceans & Recordsgrades K–3, 7 · around the globe
| Continent | Marks |
|---|---|
| Asia | biggest; Himalaya, Everest; Yangtze, Yellow, Ganges, Indus; most people |
| Africa | Sahara, Nile, Congo, Rift Valley, Kilimanjaro, savanna |
| North America | Rockies, Appalachians, Mississippi, Great Lakes; Canada, U.S., Mexico |
| South America | Andes, Amazon (biggest river), rain forest, pampas |
| Antarctica | ice, coldest, no countries; penguins |
| Europe | a peninsula of peninsulas; Alps, Rhine, Danube; small countries |
| Australia | the island continent; outback, kangaroos; with the Pacific islands, Oceania |
Five oceans by size
Pacific (largest and deepest) · Atlantic · Indian · Southern (around Antarctica) · Arctic (smallest, frozen).
| Record | Answer |
|---|---|
| Highest mountain | Everest, Himalaya, 29,032 ft (Hillary and Tenzing, 1953) |
| Longest rivers | Nile (about 4,100 mi) and Amazon (biggest by water) |
| Largest hot desert | Sahara; the largest desert of all is Antarctica |
| Largest lake | Caspian Sea (salt); Superior is the largest freshwater lake by area; Baikal the deepest |
| Largest island | Greenland |
| Biggest country | Russia, eleven time zones |
| Most people | India and China |
| Deepest place | Mariana Trench, Pacific, about 36,000 ft |
| Where | Mountains | Rivers |
|---|---|---|
| N. America | Rockies, Appalachians, Sierra Nevada, Cascades | Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Colorado, Rio Grande, St. Lawrence |
| S. America | Andes | Amazon, Paraná, Orinoco |
| Europe | Alps, Pyrenees, Urals, Carpathians | Rhine, Danube, Thames, Seine, Volga |
| Africa | Atlas, Kilimanjaro, Drakensberg | Nile, Congo, Niger, Zambezi |
| Asia | Himalaya, Hindu Kush, Zagros | Yangtze, Yellow, Ganges, Indus, Tigris, Euphrates, Mekong |
| Australia | Great Dividing Range | Murray, Darling |
Regions of the world (grade 7)
Europe · Russia and Central Asia · the Middle East and North Africa (Fertile Crescent, the lands of the Bible, oil and straits) · Sub-Saharan Africa · South Asia (monsoon) · East Asia · Southeast Asia and Oceania · the Americas.
4The United Statesgrades 1–2 · our country, coast to coast
| State | Capital | State | Capital | State | Capital | State | Capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Montgomery | Indiana | Indianapolis | Nebraska | Lincoln | South Carolina | Columbia |
| Alaska | Juneau | Iowa | Des Moines | Nevada | Carson City | South Dakota | Pierre |
| Arizona | Phoenix | Kansas | Topeka | New Hampshire | Concord | Tennessee | Nashville |
| Arkansas | Little Rock | Kentucky | Frankfort | New Jersey | Trenton | Texas | Austin |
| California | Sacramento | Louisiana | Baton Rouge | New Mexico | Santa Fe | Utah | Salt Lake City |
| Colorado | Denver | Maine | Augusta | New York | Albany | Vermont | Montpelier |
| Connecticut | Hartford | Maryland | Annapolis | North Carolina | Raleigh | Virginia | Richmond |
| Delaware | Dover | Massachusetts | Boston | North Dakota | Bismarck | Washington | Olympia |
| Florida | Tallahassee | Michigan | Lansing | Ohio | Columbus | West Virginia | Charleston |
| Georgia | Atlanta | Minnesota | St. Paul | Oklahoma | Oklahoma City | Wisconsin | Madison |
| Hawaii | Honolulu | Mississippi | Jackson | Oregon | Salem | Wyoming | Cheyenne |
| Idaho | Boise | Missouri | Jefferson City | Pennsylvania | Harrisburg | ||
| Illinois | Springfield | Montana | Helena | Rhode Island | Providence |
The national capital is Washington, D.C. Neighbors: Canada to the north, Mexico to the south.
| Region | States and marks |
|---|---|
| Northeast | New England and the Mid-Atlantic; Appalachians, Boston, New York, old cities |
| Southeast | Florida to Virginia; warm, coasts, the Mississippi delta |
| Midwest | the heartland: Great Plains farms, Great Lakes, Chicago |
| Southwest | Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona; deserts, the Grand Canyon |
| West | Rockies to the Pacific, plus Alaska and Hawaii; Sierra Nevada, Cascades |
Land and water
- Rivers: the Mississippi (with the Missouri and Ohio) drains the middle; the Colorado cut the Grand Canyon; the Rio Grande is the Mexican border; the Columbia runs to the Pacific.
- Mountains: the old, rounded Appalachians in the east; the young, high Rockies in the west. Deserts: Mojave, Sonoran, Great Basin.
- Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior (HOMES). Ties: Lewis and Clark (1804–06), the Oregon Trail, the Pony Express (1860), the telegraph (1844), the railroad (1869).
5Explorers, Ports & Why Cities Stand Where They Dogrades 3–5, 8
| Who | When | What |
|---|---|---|
| Leif Erikson | c. 1000 | Vikings reach Vinland (North America) |
| Marco Polo | 1271–95 | Venice to the court of Kublai Khan by the Silk Road |
| Ibn Battuta | 1325–54 | the great traveler of Africa and Asia |
| Columbus | 1492 | crosses the Atlantic to the New World |
| Magellan / Elcano | 1519–22 | first voyage around the world |
| Captain Cook | 1768–79 | maps New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific; cured scurvy with diet |
| Lewis and Clark | 1804–06 | across the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific |
| Peary and Henson | 1909 | near the North Pole |
| Amundsen | 1911 | South Pole (Shackleton’s Endurance, 1914–16) |
| Hillary and Tenzing | 1953 | Everest |
Missionaries as geographers: William Carey (India), David Livingstone (crossed Africa), Hudson Taylor (inland China), Mary Slessor (Calabar). Judge explorers honestly: courage and skill, real wrongs, exchange across the ocean.
Site and situation
- Cities grow where a river could be crossed (ford, then bridge: Oxford, Frankfurt), where rivers meet (confluence: Pittsburgh), at the fall line where boats stop and mills start (Richmond), and on a defensible hill beside a harbor (Athens).
- River civilizations: the Nile (Egypt), Tigris and Euphrates (Ur, Babylon), Indus (Mohenjo-daro), Yellow River (Yu the Great).
| Kind | Names |
|---|---|
| Great ports | Venice, Amsterdam, London (Thames), New York (Erie Canal, 1825), Rotterdam (Rhine), Singapore, Hong Kong |
| Choke-point straits | Gibraltar, the Bosporus, Malacca, Hormuz, the English Channel |
| Canals | Grand Canal of China, Suez (1869), Panama (1914), St. Lawrence Seaway (1959) |
Malcom McLean’s container (1956) made a ship load in hours instead of days; the Silk Road, the compass and sails that beat against the wind made trade possible.
Water first
Almost every great city began at water: a crossing, a confluence, a fall line or a harbor. Ask of your own town: where is the river, and why here?