A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

Early Childhood: Where Learning Begins Geography--January 1999

Glossary

altitude: Distance above sea level(the surface of the sea). Tells you how high or how tall a mountain or other piece of land is; how many feet above the ground an airplane flies. The altitude of Denver, Colorado, is over 5,000 feet.
atlas: A book of maps. An atlas of the United States has maps of all 50 states and the U.S. territories.
archipelago: A group of islands close together in an ocean or sea. The Philippine Islands are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.
bay: A wide area of water extending into land from a sea or lake. San Francisco, California, is on the Golden Gate Bay.
boundaries: Lines indicating the limits of countries, states, or other political jurisdictions. On maps, boundaries are shown as straight lines, dotted lines, or going through mountains or water.
canal: A man--made watercourse designed to carry ships, goods, or water. The Suez Canal is in Egypt.
canyon: A large but narrow gorge with steep sides. Thousands of years ago, the Grand Canyon was formed by the rushing water of the Colorado River.
cape: A piece of land extending into water. The United States launches rockets from Cape Canaveral at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
cartographer: A person who draws or makes maps or charts. Cartographers made maps of the western United States using information from Lewis and Clark's expedition.
continent: One of the seven large land masses. The continents are North America, South America, Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Antarctica. France is on the continent of Europe, and the United States is on the continent of North America.
degree: A unit of angular measure. A circle is divided into 360 degrees, represented by the symbol o. Degrees, when applied to the roughly spherical shape of the Earth for geographic and cartographic purposes, are each divided into 60 minutes. Each minute has 60 seconds. Degrees on a map help us locate places.
delta: The fan--shaped area at the mouth, or lower end, of a river, formed by eroded material that has been carried downstream and dropped in quantities larger than can be carried off by tides or currents. The Nile and Mississippi Rivers have deltas.
desert: A very dry land that has little rainfall and cannot sustain much life. There are few trees. The Sahara Desert in North Africa is very hot.
elevation: Measures how high land is. It is measured from sea level, which is at zero elevation. The elevation of Mount Everest is over 26,000 feet.
equator: An imaginary circle around the Earth halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole; the largest circumference of the Earth. It cuts the Earth into two equal parts, the northern and southern hemispheres. Australia is south of the Equator.
glacier: A large body of ice that moves slowly down a mountainside from highlands toward sea level. A glacier is a slow moving, frozen river of ice.
gulf: A large arm of an ocean or sea extending into a land mass. The Gulf of Mexico is west of Florida.
hemisphere: Half of the Earth, usually conceived as resulting from the division of the globe into two equal parts, north and south or east and west. The northern hemisphere is north of the equator, the southern hemisphere is south of the equator.
island: An area of land, smaller than a continent, completely surrounded by water. Cuba, Japan, and Great Britain are islands.
isthmus: A narrow strip of land that separates two bodies of water or connects two pieces of land. The Isthmus of Panama separates the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and connects South and North America.
lagoon: A shallow area of water separated from the ocean by a sandbank or by a strip of low land. A lagoon does not have waves like an ocean.
lake: A body of fresh or salt water entirely surrounded by land. Lake Como in Italy is a fresh water lake, but the Great Salt Lake has salt water.
latitude: Lines of latitude are imaginary lines that tell how far north or south a place is from the Equator. The lines measure the degrees north and south from the Equator. Zero degrees is the location of the Equator.
legend: A listing which contains symbols and other information about a map. For example, the legend on a map might show scratchy lines to indicate where the railroad tracks run.
longitude: Imaginary lines that run from the North Pole to the South Pole. The lines of longitude start at the Prime Meridian, in Greenwich, England. Longitude measures how far west or east an object is from the Prime Meridian.
mountain: A high point of land rising steeply above its surroundings. A long chain of mountains is called a range. The Andes Mountains are in South America.
oasis: A spot in a desert where water comes up from an underground spring and trees grow. People travelling through the desert often stop at an oasis for rest and water.
ocean: The salt water surrounding the great land masses, and divided by the land masses into several distinct portions, each of which is called an ocean. The five oceans of the world are the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Antarctic.
peak: The highest point of a mountain. It is difficult to climb to the top of Pike's Peak in Colorado because it is so high.
peninsula: A piece of land extending into the sea almost surrounded by water. Florida and Italy are peninsulas.
physical feature: A land shape formed by nature. Deserts, mountains, and plateaus are physical features of Arizona.
plain: A large area of land, either level or gently rolling, usually at low elevation with very few trees.
plateau (or tableland): An elevated area of mostly level land, sometimes containing deep canyons. From the top of the plateau you can see for miles around.
population: The number of people who live in a place. The population of China is over two billion.
prime meridian: An imaginary line running from north to south through Greenwich, England, used to measure longitude. The prime meridian is at zero degrees longitude.
range (or mountain range): A group or chain of high elevations. The Alps is the name of a mountain range in Europe.
reef: A chain of rocks, often coral, lying near the water surface. Sometimes ships bump into coral reefs in the ocean.
reservoir: A man--made lake where water is kept for future use. So many people live in Los Angeles that they need several reservoirs to store enough water.
river: A stream, larger than a creek, generally flowing to another stream, a lake, or to the ocean. The Mississippi River flows from Minnesota to Louisiana and into the Gulf of Mexico.
scale: The way that mapmakers reduce the real size of cities, rivers, and mountains to sizes that fit on paper. On a map, the scale may show one inch equaling 500 miles. If one city is two inches from another city, the cities are 1,000 miles apart.
sea level: The ocean surface; the mean level between high and low tides. Geographers use sea level to measure the height of the Earth: Denver, Colorado--the mile high city--is a mile over sea level.
strait: A narrow body of water connecting two larger bodies of water. The scenery near the Strait of Gibraltar, which connects the Atlantic and Mediterranean Oceans and separates Europe from Africa, is breathtaking.
swamp: An area of low land that always has deep water and is usually overgrown with grasses and trees. (A marsh is temporarily or periodically saturated.) The Everglades in south Florida is a big swamp.
valley: A relatively long, narrow land area lying between two areas of higher elevation, often containing a stream. The San Fernando Valley in California is a valley that gets very hot in the summer.
volcano: An opening in the earth through which gases, lava, and hot ashes violently rush out, or erupt. Some volcanos are still active, while others are not. Hawaii was formed by volcanos, such as Moana Loa.
waterfall: Water that flows over the edge of a cliff or steep mountainside. Niagara Falls is made up of two waterfalls.

Glossary, in part, courtesy of Hammond, Incorporated.

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