Geography Concepts

Learn a new geography definition each day covering physical geography, human geography, applied geography, and cartography.

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Geography Concepts

Landsat imagery captured July 2, 2016 shows qanats crossing the desert in southeastern Morocco. Source: NASA.

What are Qanats?

Qanat are underground water channels developed during ancient times to carry water using gravity via a gentle downward slope.

Map showing the location of the spacecraft cemetery. Source: NASA.

Ever wonder what happens to satellites and other space debris that make it back to Earth? The spacecraft cemetery is home to spacecraft, freighters, satellites, and space stations that have been retired from their jobs in space.

Gravity hill in Shullsburg, WI. Photo: Benjamin Haines.

What are Gravity Hills?

There are hundreds of gravity hills around the world and they are characterized as places where a geographical optical illusion has been created.

Istanbul straddles both sides of the 20-mile long Bosporus Strait connecting the Mediterranean and Sea of Marmara (south) to the Black Sea (north). Source: NASA

Transcontinental Cities

A transcontinental city is a city that exists on land over more than one continent. There are more than a few transcontinental cities in the world. Learn about cities that straddle continental divides.

Political map of Transnistria with the differences between the Autonomous Dniestrian Territory de jure and the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic de facto. Map: Spiridon Ion Cepleanu, Wikimedia Commons.

What are Ghost Nations?

Ghost states are states that function just like any other nation, but for various political reasons go unrecognized by the rest of the international community.

This second red sprite was captured over the coast of El Salvador almost three minutes later. Image: NASA, August 2015.

What are Sprites?

Although not much is known about sprites or the factors that create them, scientists do know that sprites are created by neutrally charged cloud discharges.

Cloud streets over the Great Lakes, February 110, 2016. NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response.

Cloud Streets

Cloud streets are cumulus clouds that form in long bands along cylinders of rotating air and are roughly parallel to the ground.

Water vapor imagery of the eastern Pacific Ocean from the GOES 11 satellite, showing a large atmospheric river aimed across California. Image from United States Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey. (Acquired December 20, 2010).

Atmospheric Rivers

Atmospheric Rivers are trails of moisture in the atmosphere composed of condensed water vapor.

Is this a ridge or a canyon? Relief inversion plays tricks on the brain with this image of the Colorado River in Arizona. Photo: NASA

Relief Inversion

When looking at aerial and satellite imagery, telling the difference between a canyon and a mountain can sometimes be tricky due to an optical illusion known as relief inversion.

Coastal wetlands at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in Massachusetts. Photo: Kelly Fike/USFWS

Wetlands

World Wetlands Day is celebrated on February 2 each year. A wetland is an area of land that is covered with water at or near the surface either year round or for varying parts of the year.