Root of the Week: GRAPH (Thursday)

Geography, Cartography, Topography (Noun)

The root “geo” means “earth,” so geography means “writing about the earth,” or the science of describing the earth.  Geographers can be both natural scientists, who study the physical features of our planet, and also social scientists, who study the ways in which human societies interact with their environments.

Naturally, people who study geography make and also use maps. The art and science of map-making is called cartography. One type of map is the topographical map. The word topography (from the Greek topos, meaning “place”) refers both to the surface features of the earth and also to the study and depiction of those features.