geography summary

Learn about geography and its subfields

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see geography.

Earth: satellite image
Satellite image of Earth.

geography, Science of the Earth’s surface, which describes and analyzes the spatial variations in physical, biological, and human phenomena that occur on the surface of the globe and treats their interrelationships and their significant regional patterns. Once associated entirely with mapping and the exploration of the Earth, the field today is wide-ranging, and geographers use a variety of methods and techniques drawn from numerous disciplines. Subfields of geography include physical, human, and regional geography, which may range in scale from worldwide to a continent, a country, or a city.

Karl Ernst von Baer Summary

Karl Ernst von Baer was a Prussian-Estonian embryologist who discovered the mammalian ovum and the notochord and established the new science of comparative embryology alongside comparative anatomy. He was also a pioneer in geography, ethnology, and physical anthropology. Baer, one of 10 children,

Title page of Richard Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation

Richard Hakluyt Summary

Richard Hakluyt was an English geographer noted for his political influence, his voluminous writings, and his persistent promotion of Elizabethan overseas expansion, especially the colonization of North America. His major publication, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the

John Wesley Powell Summary

John Wesley Powell was an American explorer, geologist, and ethnologist, best known for his exploration of the upper portion of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Powell was the fourth child of English immigrants Joseph Powell, a tailor, farmer, and itinerant Methodist preacher, and Mary

Strabo Summary

Strabo was a Greek geographer and historian whose Geography is the only extant work covering the whole range of peoples and countries known to both Greeks and Romans during the reign of Augustus (27 bce–14 ce). Its numerous quotations from technical literature, moreover, provide a remarkable