As the study of the diverse environments and places of Earth's surface, geography seeks to answer the questions of why things are as they are, where they are. This insightful volume delves into physical geography, which is concerned with places, and human geography, which deals with the people in the places––how and why they live where they do, and how their social, economic, and cultural characteristics vary from one place to another. Other subjects include topical geography, regional geography, historical geography, cartography, and maps, atlases, and globes and how to read them.