geography

The study of the physical properties of the earth, including how humans affect and are affected by them.

Some amount of basic geography is part of any good curriculum for primary and secondary education.

These days, instead of going off behind the bike shed during recess to learn about sex, kids need to sneak behind the bike shed to do a little bit of closeted geography or closeted Latin.

An atlas or gazetteer.

A description of the earth: a treatise or textbook on geography.

Geographie is (according to Ptolomei) an imitation of the picture of the vvhole Earth. […] VVe take not the Earth ſimply in its ovvn nature as it is an element, for ſo it belongeth to Philoſophy, but for the terreſtrial Globe, ſo it is the ſubiect of Geographie, and is defined to bee a Sphericall body, proportionably compoſed of earth, and vvater.

Terrain: the physical properties of a region of the earth.

The geography of the Andes approaches never made transportation easy; routes to Bogota, Quito, La Paz, and Cuzco were so precipitous as to slow down the development of those Spanish cities in the interior.

Any subject considered in terms of its physical distribution.