Helping Your Child
Learn Geography

Glossary

altitude

Distance above sea level.

atlas

A bound collection of maps.

archipelago

A group of islands or a sea studded with islands.

bay

A wide area of water extending into land from a sea or lake.

boundaries

Lines indicating the limits of countries, States, or other political jurisdictions.

canal

A man-made watercourse designed to carry goods or water.

canyon

A large but narrow gorge with steep sides.

cape (or point)

A piece of land extending into water.

cartographer

A person who draws or makes maps or charts.

continent

One of the large, continuous areas of the Earth into which the land surface is divided.

degree

A unit of angular measure. A circle is divided into 360 degrees, represented by the symbol *. Degrees, when applied to the roughly spherical shape of the Earth for geographic and cartographic purposes, are each divided into 60 minutes, represented by the symbol '.

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.

desert

A land area so dry that little or no plant life can survive.

elevation

The altitude of an object, such as a celestial body, above the horizon; or the raising of a portion of the Earth's crust relative to its surroundings, as in a mountain range.

equator

An imaginary circle around the Earth halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole; the largest circumference of the Earth.

glacier

A large body of ice that moves slowly down a mountainside from highlands toward sea level.

gulf

A large arm of an ocean or sea extending into a land mass.

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.

ice shelf

A thick mass of ice extending from a polar shore. The seaward edge is afloat and sometimes extends hundreds of miles out to sea.

international date line

An imaginary line of longitude generally 180° east or west of the prime meridian. The date becomes one day earlier to the east of the line.

island

An area of land, smaller than a continent, completely surrounded by water.

isthmus

A narrow strip of land located between two bodies of water, connecting two larger land areas.

lagoon

A shallow area of water separated from the ocean by a sandbank or by a strip of low land.

lake

A body of fresh or salt water entirely surrounded by land. 

latitude

The angular distance north or south of the equator, measured in degrees.

legend

A listing which contains symbols and other information about a map.

longitude

The angular distance east or west of the prime meridian, measured in degrees.

mountain

A high point of land rising steeply above its surroundings.

oasis

A spot in a desert made fertile by 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.

peak

The highest point of a mountain.

peninsula

A piece of land extending into the sea almost surrounded by water.

plain

A large area of land, either level or gently rolling, usually at low elevation.

plateau (or tableland)

An elevated area of mostly level land, sometimes containing deep canyons.

physical feature

A land shape formed by nature.

population

The number of people inhabiting a place.

prime meridian

An imaginary line running from north to south through Greenwich, England, used as the reference point for longitude.

range (or mountain range)

A group or chain of high elevations.

reef

A chain of rocks, often coral, lying near the water surface.

reservoir

A man-made lake where water is kept for future use.

river

A stream, larger than a creek, generally flowing to another stream, a lake, or to the ocean.

scale

The relationship of the length between two points as shown on a map and the distance between the same two points on the Earth.

sea level

The ocean surface; the mean level between high and low tides.

strait

A narrow body of water connecting two larger bodies of water.

swamp

A tract of permanently saturated low land, usually overgrown with vegetation. (A marsh is temporarily or periodically saturated.)

topography

The physical features of a place; or the study and depiction of physical features, including terrain relief.

valley

A relatively long, narrow land area lying between two areas of higher elevation, often containing a stream.

volcano

A vent in the Earth's crust caused by molten rock coming to the surface and being ejected, sometimes violently.

waterfall

A sudden drop of a stream from a high level to a much lower level.

Glossary, in part, courtesy of Hammond, Incorporated