Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The study of the earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity.
  • noun The physical characteristics, especially the surface features, of an area.
  • noun A book on geography.
  • noun An ordered arrangement of constituent elements.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The main features of a locality as regards its geographical position and general character; the knowledge derived from geographical research.
  • noun The science of the description of the earth's surface in its present condition, and of the distribution upon it of its various products and animals, especially of mankind, etc. See phrases below.
  • noun A book containing a description of the earth or of a portion of it; particularly, a school-book for teaching the science of geography.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The science which treats of the world and its inhabitants; a description of the earth, or a portion of the earth, including its structure, features, products, political divisions, and the people by whom it is inhabited. It also includes the responses and adaptations of people to topography, climate, soil and vegetation.
  • noun A treatise on this science.
  • noun geography treats of the earth as a planet, of its shape, its size, its lines of latitude and longitude, its zones, and the phenomena due to to the earth's diurnal and annual motions.
  • noun treats of the conformation of the earth's surface, of the distribution of land and water, of minerals, plants, animals, etc., and applies the principles of physics to the explanation of the diversities of climate, productions, etc.
  • noun treats of the different countries into which earth is divided with regard to political and social and institutions and conditions.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The study of the physical structure and inhabitants of the Earth.
  • noun The physical structure of a particular region; terrain.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun study of the earth's surface; includes people's responses to topography and climate and soil and vegetation

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin geōgraphia, from Greek geōgraphiā : geō-, geo- + -graphiā, -graphy.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Via Latin and French, from Ancient Greek γεωγραφία (geographia), from γῆ (gē, "earth") + γράφω ("write").

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