Geography

Information on the earth, its features, the distribution of life, and political boundaries.

Sub-headings:

Flags

Resources relating to flags and banners of political and other entities.

Maps & Atlases

Collections of maps.

Resources in this category:

About.Com: Geography
http://geography.about.com/

Offers a broad range of geography resources. Includes maps, country information, short articles, topical content, a blog, links to other online geography resources, a discussion board, quizzes and games, glossary, newsletter, etc.

Australian Cartographic Resources on the Internet
http://www.nla.gov.au/oz/maps.html

Includes links to information on map publishers, Australian map societies, and geographic facts about Australia. Part of the National Library of Australia Internet Subject Lists project.

The Columbia Gazetteer of North America
http://www.bartleby.com/69/

"With 50,000 entries, the Gazetteer covers every incorporated place and county in the United States, along with several thousand unincorporated places, special-purpose sites, and physical features, as well as Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean." Search, or browse an alphabetic index.

Countries
http://www.ipl.org/div/pf/entry/48458

Do you need to do a school report on Finland? Are you looking for information about countries in Latin America? This IPL pathfinder is designed to find print and Internet resources about nations and regions around the world. You may have to consult a variety of sources before you find all the information that you need.

Distance Calculator between Cities
http://www.mapcrow.info/

Directly calculates the coordinates and distance between most international cities. Displays a simple map of the results.

Earth
http://www.alexandria.ucsb.edu/other-sites/Earth.html

Links to reference resources related to the planet Earth and the oceans and continents. Includes links dealing with climates and meteorology, agriculture, the environment, and more. Also includes several kinds of maps.

The 50 States of the United States: Capital Cities and Information Links
http://www.50states.com/

This site on the fifty states (and the U.S. commonwealths and territories) has information such as: location (latitude and longitude), birds, colleges and universities, constitutions, flowers, genealogical resources, geological formations, geographical features, mottos, national forests and parks, newspapers, nicknames, nonprofit organizations, populations, state and federal representatives, songs, and the date of entry into the union. All facts are linked to over 1529 governmental or authoritative webpages.

Footnotes to History
http://www.buckyogi.com/footnotes/

This site is dedicated to providing information about former nations that are largely unknown, and not referenced in many textbooks. Many of these nations were short-lived, quite small, or ethnic regions.

Geographic Names Information System
http://geonames.usgs.gov/

Search for places in the United States by feature, state or county name; feature type; population or elevation range. Returns detailed geographical data for each region found.

Geography in Action
http://www.geographyinaction.co.uk/

"This site is for use by all geography students and teachers, although much of it has been designed with the Northern Ireland Geography curriculum in mind." Topics include ethnic diversity, urban structure, landscapes, place names, images, geology, among others.

Geography Network
http://www.geographynetwork.com/

Search for maps and geography applications.

GEOnet Names Server
http://earth-info.nima.mil/gns/html/

This database allows searching for geographic information on countries outside of the United States. It includes not only towns, cities and other populated places, but also features like rivers, lakes, roads, tunnels, schools, even individual rocks and other obscure features. The database will provide exact latitude and longitude information for the features.

Geosource
http://www.library.uu.nl/geosource/

"Geosource is a collection of links to webpages with information in the subjects that are being taught and studied in the Faculty of Geographical Sciences of Utrecht Unversity, Netherlands. These are: Environmental Science and Policy Studies; Human Geography; Physical Geography; and Planning Science. Geosource intends to serve the academic community in the field of geography and planning and (to a lesser extent) geoscience and environmental science. It's compiled, updated and maintained by Jeroen Bosman, subject librarian for Geography, cartography, Planning and Environmental Science at the Uithof Library Centre of the Utrecht University Library."

GeoSources: The Canadian Geography Website
http://www.ccge.org/ccge/

"Canada's foremost resource for geographical information on the web. Learn about Canada, its people and places. GEOsources also has news, quizzes, lesson plans for teachers, new themes each month, and much more." Available in French and English.

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabulari...

Developed primarily for the field of art history, the TGN is a structured vocabulary of nearly 1 million place names representing approximately 900,000 places. Users can browse the world hierarchically, or use the search function.

Glossary of Cartographic Terms
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/glossary.html

A lengthy glossary of cartographic terms for use by cartographers, geologists, geographers or hydrologists. Excerpted from Maps for America, 3rd edition.

How Far Is It?
http://www.indo.com/distance/

Calculates the distance (as the crow flies) between two places. Very few places outside the United States are included.

How Stuff Works
http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Sections include Adventure, Animals, Auto, Communication, Computer, Electronics, Entertainment, Food, Geography, Health, History, Home & Garden, Money, People, and Science. Covers a wide range of topics and has answers to many obscure or unique questions. Good for general reference as well.

Land Use History of the Colorado Plateau
http://www.cpluhna.nau.edu/index.htm

Environmental history; summary of a vast body of research from multiple disciplines in an easily accessible format.

Library of Congress Country Studies
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html

The site gives very detailed information on countries' geography, society, economy, transportation, communications, government, politics and history. "Each study is written by a multidisciplinary team of social scientists. The authors seek to provide a basic understanding of the observed society, striving for a dynamic rather than a static portrayal. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make up the society, their origins, dominant beliefs and values, their common interests and the issues on which they are divided, the nature and extent of their involvement with national institutions, and their attitudes toward each other and toward their social system and political order." This source does not cover some of the world's smaller countries.

Links to the Past
http://www.cr.nps.gov/

"Information and news from the National Park Service programs in archeology, ethnography, historic landscapes, historic structures, history, and museum management."

NationMaster.com
http://www.nationmaster.com/

"Welcome to NationMaster.com, a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Bank, World Resources Institute, UNESCO, UNICEF and OECD. Using the form above, you can generate maps and graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease."

START Natural Language Question Answering System
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/infolab/globe.html

The START Natural Language artificial intelligence server at MIT interactively answers all kinds of geography questions posed by Web users in natural language queries. Ask questions or make requests such as "Show me a map of Turkey?," "What is the population of Rome?" or "What cities are within 300 miles of Moscow?"

UNESCO World Heritage List
http://whc.unesco.org/

The World Heritage List, compiled by UNESCO, consists of sites, monuments, or buildings that have been deemed to be culturally and historically significant on a worldwide scale. The site includes a list of over 690 sites, listed alphabetically by country; a list of World Heritage Sites in danger of destruction, and the selection criteria for these sites.

World Desk Reference
http://dev.prenhall.com/divisions/hss/worldreference/

"The World Desk Reference is packed with facts and statistics, maps, illustrations and diagrams. Each of the world's nations is analysed in up to 19 subject areas, from Climate to Chronology, from Aid to Transportation, from Politics to Economics. Key features: A complete overview of the modern world: physical, political, historical and economic; Each of the 192 nations surveyed and mapped in detail including full coverage of the world's newest nations; An invaluable guide to 20,000 of the world's most important places, including alternative spellings and recent place-name changes; More than 5,000 illustrations, charts and diagrams, and over 600 maps, 25,000 facts and statistics."

The World Gazetteer
http://www.gazetteer.de/

"This site provides information about current population of countries, their administrative areas, cities and towns as well as images of the current national flags." Includes place names in non-Roman scripts which can be displayed in unicode-capable browsers.

Worldwide Gazetteer
http://www.gazeteer.com/gazeteer/v2/index.aspx

A geographical dictionary with links to Web resources related to each country. Each entry links to resources in the following categories: brief overviews, research about the country, newspapers, business, politics and economics, health and wealth, language, and travel.