the Internet Public Library

Geography Resources

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

For resources relating to specific regions and countries, see the Regional & Country Information section.

Flags

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

Maps & Atlases

Collections of maps.

Resources in this category are:

About.Com: Geography

http://geography.about.com/

"Weekly features about geography, annotated links to geography resources, a bulletin board and chat room for geographical discussion, a weekly quiz and newsletter, and more."

Author: Matt T. Rosenberg (geography.guide@about.com)

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Resources

The Arctic and Antarctic Research Center (AARC)

http://arcane.ucsd.edu/

"The Arctic and Antarctic Research Center (AARC) maintains an archive of more than 120,000 satellite passes of the Earth's polar regions. At present, this database is over 10 Terabytes in size. The AARC also provides data processing services to a wide variety of polar researchers. The AARC supplies data to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in collaboration with the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs." View a sample of selected Arctic/Antarchtic satellite images or search the AARC Image Catalog.

Author: Steve Hart and Frank Delahoyde (steve@arcane.ucsd.edu)

Subjects:

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Arctic; Antarctic; Polar; Satellite Images

Atlapedia Online

http://www.atlapedia.com/

"Atlapedia Online contains full color physical and political maps as well as key facts and statistics on countries of the world. The Countries A to Z section, provides facts, figures and statistical data on geography, climate, people, religion, language, history, economy & more..for each individual country. The World Maps section, provides full color physical and political maps for regions of the world." Searchable.

Author: Latimer Clarke Corporation Pty Ltd. (gmlc@latimerclarke.com)

Subjects:

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

Reference--Geography--Maps & Atlases

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.

Author: Maura O'Connor, National Library of Australia (www@nla.gov)

Subjects:

Regional & Country Information--South Pacific

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Geodesy; Australia

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.

Author:

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

E-Conflict World Encyclopedia

http://www.emulateme.com

"The E-Conflict World Encyclopedia site profiles the nations of the world. View maps and flags or listen to national anthems. There are over 1,400 pages of written text on the nations." The national anthems are stored as MIDI files.

Author: David Driggs (anakinskywalker@seanet.com)

Subjects:

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Maps; Flags; National Anthems

Earth

http://alexandria.sdc.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.

Author: Alexandria Digital Library Project (unj@geog.ucsb.edu)

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Science & Technology--Astronomy--Solar System (Planetary)

Science & Technology--Earth Sciences

Keywords: Earth science

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.

Author: Ray Weber (webmaster@50states.com)

Subjects:

Reference--Almanacs

Reference--Geography

Keywords: State Almanacs; State Information; State Facts; State Reference

Footnotes to History

http://www.buckyogi.addr.com/footnotes/index.htm

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.

Author: James L. Erwin (jlerwin@hotmail.com)

Subjects:

Arts & Humanities--History

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

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.

Author: U.S. Geological Survey (gnis_manager@usgs.gov)

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Keywords: United States

GEOnet Names Server

http://www.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.

Author:

Subjects:

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

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."

Author: Jeroen Bosman (j.bosman@library.uu.nl)

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Science & Technology--Earth Sciences

Science & Technology--Environmental Sciences & Ecology

GeoSources: The Canadian Geography Website

http://www.ccge.org/geosources/

"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.

Author: Canadian Council for Geographic Education and The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (rcgs@rcgs.org)

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Canada

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN)

http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/index.html

"A structured vocabulary developed primarily for the field of art history, but with the potential for wide applications in related disciplines such as archeology, history and geography. The TGN contains nearly 1 million place names representing approximately 900,000 places. The thesaurus is composed of names and other information contributed by several Getty projects." Users can browse the world hierarchically, or use the search function.

Author: The Getty Research Institute (griweb@getty.edu)

Subjects:

Arts & Humanities--Fine Arts

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Art History; Gazetteer

GIS Frequently Asked Questions and General Info List

http://www.census.gov/geo/www/faq-index.html

An FAQ for Geographic Information Systems, from the comp.infosystems.gis USENET newsgroup.

Author: Lisa Nyman (lnyman@census.gov)

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Keywords: GIS; FAQ

Glossary of Cartographic Terms

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/glossary.html

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

Author: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (www@lib.utexas.edu)

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Dictionary

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.

Author: Darrell Kindred (dkmsg@cs.cmu.edu)

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Distance; United States

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.

Author: Library of Congress (lcweb@loc.gov)

Subjects:

Arts & Humanities--History

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

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."

Author: National Park Service (nps_webmaster@nps.gov)

Subjects:

Law, Government & Political Science--Government--US Federal Government--Executive--Agencies

Reference--Geography

Keywords: National Park Service

Microsoft Terra Server

http://terraserver.Microsoft.com/

The Microsoft Terra Server is an online database of satellite photographs of the planet earth. The images are from two sources: the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Spin-2. "The United States Geological Survey (USGS) provided georectified digitized aerial photographs (known as digital orthophotoquads) from their vast files. SPIN-2 provided high-resolution satellite images, products of a joint Russian/American venture to market declassified satellite photographs from sophisticated Russian mapping satellites."

Author: Microsoft Corporation

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Keywords: satellite images; digital orthophotoquads

PostInfo: Address Management On the Web

http://postinfo.net/

PostInfo provides links to the postal authorities/postal codes for approximately 60 countries worldwide. Most sites are produced in the country's official language(s). A list of ISO country codes and samples of their use is also provided.

Author: PostInfo (webmaster@postinfo.net)

Subjects:

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Zip Codes; Postal Codes; Postal Authority; International

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?"

Author: Boris Katz and Jimmy Lin (infolab@ai.mit.edu)

Subjects:

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

UNESCO World Heritage List

http://www.unesco.org/whc/nwhc/pages/doc/mainf3.htm

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.

Author:

Subjects:

Arts & Humanities--History

Law, Government & Political Science--Government--International Government & Intergovernmental Groups--United Nations

Reference--Geography

Keywords: Monument; Culture; Preservation; Conservation; Nature

What is the Capital of...?

http://www.what-is-the-capital-of.com/

A reference for looking up capitals of countries, organized by continent. The site also has quizzes for testing your knowledge of world capitals.

Author: Alwyn Botha (alwynbotha@what-is-the-capital-of.com)

Subjects:

Law, Government & Political Science--Government

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

Keywords: continent; capital

World Desk Reference

http://travel.dk.com/wdr/

"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."

Author: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc.

Subjects:

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

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.

Author:

Subjects:

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Census Data & Demographics

Reference--Geography

Worldwide Gazetteer

http://www.gazeteer.com/

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.

Author: Chris Allen (c-allen@dircon.co.uk)

Subjects:

Regional & Country Information

Reference--Geography

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