Charles A. Heatwole

Language is arguably the most important of the cultural universals. This is not to question the significance of religion or other traits; but language is essential to communicating and sharing many aspects of culture. The standard first step in analyzing the geography of languages is to produce a map of them. For example, Figure 1 shows a map of where English is the primary language.

It would be great if you could go deep into the Earth and see what's going on, but that's impossible — despite what Jules Verne wrote. The average distance from Earth's surface to the center is 3,960 miles, and no human has ever come close. Several books and movies have portrayed such fanciful feats, but the truth is that people have barely penetrated the crust.

In geography, the world as a whole possesses a grid whose coordinates may be used to identify the absolute location of things. Indeed, that is why a Greek named Hipparchus invented the global grid some 2,200 years ago. As chief librarian at the great library in Alexandria, Egypt, Hipparchus compiled information about lands and cities all over the expanding Greek world.

People are fascinated by the world in which they live. They want to know what it's like and why it is the way it is. Most importantly, they want to understand their place in it. Geography satisfies this curiosity and provides practical knowledge and skills that people find useful in their personal and professional lives.