Geography Awareness Week

I always read googlesystem.blogspot.com, through which I came to know that United States and Canada are celebrating November 12th to 18th as Geography Awareness Week.

Geography is my all time favourite subject. I just love geography. Geography is a study of our Mother Earth. Wikipedia has this definition - Geography (from the Greek words Ge or Gaea, both meaning "Earth", and graphein meaning "to describe" or "to write"or "to map") is the study of the Earth's features and of the distribution of life on the earth, including human life and the effects of human activity. So, literally, the translation would be "To describe Earth".

Studying Geography always includes Atlas, Maps, Pictures of various places on Earth. It does not need much memorising unlike History or Civics, since memorising something related to a Picture is extremely easier. I am always fascinated by Maps. Probably this might be the reason why I love Geography more than other subjects. Studying Atlas has been my favourite pass time since my school days.

Now a days, many online tools bring Geography much closer to people. Google Earth, Google maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth are some of those. Among them Google Earth is my new Fascination. Google has done a commendable job putting huge database of satellite pictures, information about various places into one place and making them more interative. International Organizations are using Google Earth to analyze the state of Global Warming. Latest information on Google Earth can be found here.

Google and National Geographic are celebrating "Geography Awareness Week". Google has added more layers in Google Earth as part of that. One of them is David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. This Collection has Maps since 15th Century. These are the pictures of the of the world in 1690. The names are in Italian.

Now Amazzoni and Brasille have become Brazil. Paraguai has become Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina. Chile has become more elongated. Peru has got divided into Bolivia, Peru and Columbia. Gujana has become Venezuala. United Mexico, Luiciana, California can be seen in North America.

Our Asia. Indie was so big !!! Indie has become India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Srilanka... One can see Maratha, Madras, Bombay, Surat, Delhi, Bijapur, Cochin, Aurangabad.... Now I am remembering the history lessons of British India.

Now the Continent which colonised the entire world in the past centuries. Germania has become Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands. Greece, Turkey, Armenia all are united in the Map. Finland and Sweden are also united.

Geography always brings us close to our Earth and Nature. We can study the relation between the living beings and the Nature. The Mountains, Rivers, Valleys, Deserts, Grasslands, Evergreen Forests, Oceans makes one think how the earth has evolved from Millions of years and its importance.

Now a days, Human beings are caring very little about the Nature resulting in Imbalance in Nature, Global Warming leading to abnormal rainfalls, cyclones, Droughts. The study of Geography is much more important now than before to understand the delicate relationship between the Nature and Living beings, especially in developing countries like India and China, which are just aiming to increase their GDP by destroying their Natural Resources. Human beings have to always remember that Human force is nothing compared to that of the Mother Nature.

Save Earth