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Portal:Geography

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Geography is the science that studies the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of the Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276–194 BC). Four historical traditions in geographical research are the spatial analysis of the natural and the human phenomena (geography as the study of distribution), the area studies (places and regions), the study of the human-land relationship, and research in the Earth sciences. Modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline that foremost seeks to understand the Earth and all of its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical science". Geography is divided into two main branches: human geography and physical geography.

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Lake Burley Griffin
Lake Burley Griffin is a lake in the centre of Canberra, Australia's federal capital city. It was created in 1963 after the Molonglo River, which runs through the city centre, was dammed. Named after Walter Burley Griffin, the architect who won the design competition for the city of Canberra, the lake is located in the approximate geographic centre of the city, according to Griffin's original designs. Numerous important institutions, such as the National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, National Library of Australia, and the High Court of Australia lie on its shores, and Parliament House is a short distance away. Its surrounds are also quite popular with recreational users, particularly in the warmer months. Though swimming in the lake is uncommon, it is used for a wide variety of other activities, such as rowing, fishing, and sailing. The lake's flow is regulated by the 33 metre tall Scrivener Dam, which is designed to handle a once in 5000 year flood event, and in times of drought, water levels can be maintained through the release of water from Googong Dam. The lake is an ornamental body with a length of 11 kilometres (6.8 mi); at its widest, it measures 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi). It has an average depth of 4 metres (13 ft) and a maximum depth of about 18 metres (59 ft) near the Scrivener Dam.

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Amundsen's party at the South Pole, December 1911

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Kaiparowits Plateau

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The mark of Rossier's studio
Pierre Rossier was a pioneering Swiss photographer whose albumen photographs, which include stereographs and cartes-de-visite, comprise portraits, cityscapes and landscapes. He was commissioned by the London firm of Negretti and Zambra to travel to Asia and document the progress of the Anglo-French troops in the Second Opium War and, although he failed to join that military expedition, he remained in Asia for several years, producing the first commercial photographs of China, the Philippines, Japan and Siam (now Thailand). He was the first professional photographer in Japan, where he trained Ueno Hikoma, Maeda Genzō, Horie Kuwajirō, as well as lesser known members of the first generation of Japanese photographers. One of his works became the earliest known hand-coloured Japanese photograph. In Siam, Rossier took ethnographic portraits for French zoologist Marie Firmin Bocourt, who was on a scientific expedition. In Switzerland he established photographic studios in Fribourg and Einsiedeln, and he also produced images elsewhere in the country. Rossier is an important figure in the early history of photography not only because of his own images, but also because of the critical impact of his teaching in the early days of Japanese photography.

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Jamison Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia
Credit: Diliff

The Blue Mountains in Australia borders on Sydney's metropolitan area, its foothills starting approximately 50 kilometres (31 mi) west of the state capital. Geologically, it is situated in the central parts of the Sydney Basin. Consisting mainly of a sandstone plateau, the area is dissected by gorges up to 760 metres (2,490 ft) deep.

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

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