EDUCATION

Land use refers to the way humans manage and modify natural environments for various purposes, from growing food and building cities to conserving wildlife and extracting resources. Across the globe, approximately 71% of the Earth’s ice-free land surface has been altered by human activity, reflecting the immense scale at which societies have reshaped the natural … Read more

Borders and boundaries are among the most powerful and consequential abstractions in human geography — invisible lines drawn across the surface of the Earth that nonetheless determine the movement of people, the flow of goods, the jurisdiction of laws, and the identity of nations with a force that can be literally a matter of life … Read more

Migration — the movement of people from one place to another with the intention of settling, permanently or temporarily, in a new location — is one of the most fundamental and consequential processes in human geography. It is as old as humanity itself. The first modern humans walked out of Africa approximately 70,000 years ago … Read more

Settlements are among the most fundamental expressions of human geography — the places where people choose, or are compelled, to live, work, and organize their social lives in relationship to the land, resources, and other people around them. A settlement is broadly defined as any place where people have established a permanent or semi-permanent residence, … Read more

Desertification is one of the most insidious and far-reaching environmental crises of the modern era — the process by which fertile, productive land in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid regions is degraded into barren, desert-like conditions through a combination of climatic variation and human activities that strip the land of its vegetation, destroy its soil … Read more

Deforestation — the permanent or long-term removal of forest cover from land that is subsequently converted to non-forest use — is one of the most significant and consequential environmental transformations occurring on the surface of the Earth today. Forests cover approximately 31 percent of the Earth’s total land surface — roughly 4.06 billion hectares — … Read more

Vegetation zones — also known as biomes or plant communities — are the great regional assemblages of plant life that cover the Earth’s land surface in broad, recognizable belts and patches, each shaped by the interplay of climate, soils, topography, and evolutionary history into a distinctive community of species adapted to the conditions of that … Read more

Peninsulas are among the most geographically fascinating and historically significant landforms on the surface of the Earth — extensions of land projecting outward from a larger landmass and surrounded by water on three or more sides while remaining connected to the mainland by an isthmus or neck of land. The word peninsula comes from the … Read more

Plateaus are among the most distinctive and geologically significant landforms on the surface of the Earth — elevated, relatively flat or gently undulating expanses of terrain that stand conspicuously above the surrounding landscape, bounded on at least one side by steep escarpments or cliffs that mark the abrupt transition from the elevated surface to the … Read more

Plains are among the most fundamental and far-reaching landforms on the surface of the Earth — vast, open expanses of relatively flat or gently undulating terrain that cover more of the planet’s land surface than any other landform type. Stretching across continents in sweeping horizons that seem to extend forever, plains lack the dramatic visual … Read more