Photo and Map Collections for World Geography
(Note: When you search for a photo in the search engine at the top of the page, the options appear at the bottom of this page. Suggestion: try search for ”qanat.”)
We are building a collection of annotated photos and Esri “story maps.” In 2016, we are again soliciting annotated slide shows and story maps, especially those that can be related to specific SOLs. Authors will receive a small stipend upon acceptance of their work. See guidelines below.
World Regional Maps
Excellent sets of maps by Georgeanne Hribar have been developed using ArcGIS. Maps for World Geography, Human Geography Geoinquiries, and World History can be accessed at http://vga.maps.arcgis.com/home/index.html
The following maps were prepared for classroom use by Dr. Andrew Foy, Department of Geoscience, Radford University. Below is are first drafts of color maps of several world regions. They all appear as pdfs. Regional composition is in agreement with Virginia World Geography 2008 SOLs.
Australia and the Pacific Islands
Caribbean Islands
East Asia
Mexico and Central America
South America
South Asia
Southeast Asia
Note: Other world regional maps can found on the World History I pages.
Story maps
These are best viewed in the most recent version of your browser. To eliminate caption from the image, click the down arrow. to save photo for use in PowerPoints, right click and select “save image as.” A full resolution jpeg will download.
Currently available:
Taiwan by Don Zeigler, Old Dominion University.
South Africa by Penny Anderson, Spotsylvania County Schools.
Coming:
Germany, by Barbara Crain, Northern Virginia Community College.
Slide Collections
Slide collections for world regional geography now exist for Belarus, East Sea/Sea of Japan name controversy, Ecuador, Israel, Morocco, Moscow and Saint Petersburg (Russia), and Peru. Each appears as a separate “album,” available in the box below. You may view them as a slideshow or as a set of thumbnails, which can be enlarged by clicking on the photo. When descriptions are present, they can be seen in the slideshow version.
A separate collection, Aerial Views of Earth, contains photos from several parts of the world, including Virginia.
Oil palm
Oil palm plantations occupy increasing acreage in Esmeraldas Province in northwest Ecuador. Their expansion threatens the Choco, the species-rich Pacific coast rainforest of South America, through deforestation, use of pesticides, and wastes generated from processing plants.
Fruits of the oil palm
Fruits of the oil palm piled at a processing mill. The main product is palm oil, which is used in the manufacture of soaps (e.g., palmolive soap), ointments, cosmetics, detergents, and lubricants. In some regional cuisines of Africa and parts of Brazil it is used as a cooking oil.
Oil extraction
Oil is extracted from the palm nuts in large mills.
Hearts of palm
Hearts of palm is another plantation crop along the north coast of Ecuador. It comes from young trees of the species Bactris gasipaes, not from tree used to produce palm oil. Ecuador is one of the world's main producers of hearts of palm.
Cacao
Cacao is a crop native to lowland humid, tropical South America. Note the fruits grow ont he trunk of the tree, a characteristic of many rainforest trees.The source of chocolate, it is grown on plantations in the coastal region.
Cacao fruit showing beans inside.
The beans must be fermented, dried, and roasted before processed into cocoa.
Santiago de Guayaquil
Guayaquil was founded in 1538 by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellano as a river and seaport. The modern city of Guayaquil is Ecuador's most populous (2.4 million), reflecting its primary function as the main port for the country. Today international flights out of Quito often stop here to refuel before heading to the US and elsewhere, because the high elevation of Quito prohibits takeoff with a full fuel tank. All flights to the Galapagos either originate here or stop here.
Guayaquil waterfront
Sunday strollers in the riverfront park along the Rio Guaya.
Urban park scene
Small parks occur throughout residential area and in the CBD. Note the flat-topped tree and look at closeup in next photo.
Iguanas
The large land iguanas of Guayaquil are probably ancestral to those more famous iguanas of the Galapagos Islands.
Feedng iguanas in the park
Family outings to park involve feeding the nearly tame iguanas.
Port of Guayaquil
The port of Guayaquil serves all of Ecuador.
Containers being offloaded onto trucks
Container ships carry goods to and from Ecuador.
Cargo ships
Cargo ships lined up along the pier.
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Future Slide Collections: Guidelines
We are looking for annotated photos to become part of online collections of slides useful to teachers of world geography. Photos dealing with Virginia or relevant to AP Human Geography are also welcome.
If you wish to submit photos, at a minimum please identify the location of the set of photos and write a caption for each photo. Accompanying information on geographic significance is always welcome. It may prove helpful in the future if you also categorize your photos as to physical geography, cultural geography, economic geography, political geography, and so forth, and provide keywords. Keep in mind the teacher/user and think about the type of information you would want if you were to use someone else’s photos. Slideshows will likely be organized according to world region and, if possible, SOL.
Remember that accompanying maps can also be useful!
Maximum size of the largest dimension (length or width depending upon orientation) is 1024 pixels. We can make necessary adjustments if you do not have the means to do so yourself. Photos should be of sufficient resolution to be used on the web (72 dpi) and/or in PowerPoints. Recommended PowerPoint size is 768 x 512 pixels. The site cannot not accommodate files greater than 12 mb.
Plan to send individual jpegs of photos, numbered in sequence. Captions keyed to the photos should be placed in a WORD document so that they may be copied and pasted into a photo album. It would be most helpful if the photo caption also indicates the relevant SOL. (See the South Africa slideshow above as an example of best practices.)
Please send questions or submissions to Penny Anderson at panderso@hs.scs.k12.va.us.
