As did its predecessors, this seventh edition of Introduction to Geography seeks to introduce college students to the breadth and excitement of the field of geography. Like previous editions, its content is organized around the major research traditions of the discipline, a structure that adopters of earlier editions have found to be attractive to students and convenient and flexible for instructors.

This well-established text has been keeping students current with world trends for many years, and the seventh edition continues that tradition and purpose. While Introduction to Geography is still organized around the four themes of geography-- physical, cultural, locational, and regional-it has also been extensively revised and updated with seventh edition, reflecting new information of analysis and changing current events.

Replaced or revised many of the maps and diagrams, updated tables, and secured many new photographs.

Purpose. We recognize that many students will have only a single college course and textbook in geography. Our purpose for those students is to convey concisely and clearly the nature of the field, its intellectual challenges, and the logical interconnections of its parts. Even if they take no further work in geography, we are satisfied that they will have come into contact with the richness and breadth of our discipline and have at their command new insights and understandings for their present and future role as informed adults.

Approach. The approach Introduction to Geography takes allows the major research traditions of geography to dictate the principle themes. Chapter 1 introduces students to the four organizing traditions that have emerged through the long history of geographical thought and writing: earth science, culture-environment, location, and area analysis. Each of the four parts of this book centers on one of these geographic perspectives. Within each part (except that on area analysis) chapters are devoted to the sub-fields of geography; each placed with the tradition to which we think it belongs.

Flexibility. A useful textbook must be flexible enough in its organization to permit an instructor to adapt it to the time and subject matter constraints of a particular course. The chapters are reasonably self-contained and need not be assigned in the sequence presented in the book.

• Added Nature of the Discipline to explain Geography as it relates to our spatial awareness (sense of place)
• Revised Roots of the Discipline to be the Evolution of the Discipline
• Working in Geography now includes: Listing of Geographic Fields and Employment Opportunities
• Added sections on absolute direction and absolute distance
• Considerable number of web sites added to the On-line box.
• Expanded Attributes of Places to include an historical perspective of human impact on the landscape
• Added Geographic Themes and Standards

• Added Global Positioning Systems in automobiles
• Detailed discussion/explanation on map scale
• Information on contour interval and shaded relief
• Detailed information on area symbols, chloropleth maps and cartogram
• Orthophoto map
• Radar imagery
• Updated maps
• GIS, raster and data format
• New Box on Cambodia or Kampuchen? Burma or Myamar? Change in Place Names on Maps
• Addition of Rhumb line as vocabulary word
• Updated material

• New vignette

• Added El Nino Information

• The added definition Ecology and the significance of our impact on the environment
• Added information on eutrophication
• Added information on Pfiesteria Piscicida
• Thermal pollution
• Montreal Protocol on Depletion of the Ozone Layer

• Updated population projections and birthrates
• New Box "A Population Implosion"
• New! Comparative Densities table
• Updated urban population data
• Global fertility and birth rates

• Expansion of the English Language
• New Box "The Matter of Race". This box defines race, natural selection, adaptation, genetic drift and gene flow.

• Explanation of Anchor Points used by behavior geographers
• New "Gender and Mobility" box highlighting women's mobility and independence
• Updated "Backlash" box with latest legislation

• Definition and examples of exclave added
• Updated "The Gnarled Politics of an Enclave (Armenia/Azerbaijan)
• Addition of relict boundary with definition and examples
• Updated "Legislative Women" with new examples
• Updated "Centrifugal Forces: Challenges to State Authority" with new examples and definition of subnationalism, self-determination, regionalism and devolution
• Updated "The Disintegration of Yugoslavia" with new map/boundaries, new conflicts between the Albanians, Serbs and Croats, as well as, the definition of ethnic cleansing

• Updated "Women and the Green Revolution" with information on the FAO Plan of Action for Women in Development (1996-2001) promoting gender-based equity in resources
• Additional information on developing countries reliance on primary export and expansion to industrial capabilities and export of manufactured goods
• Updated World Manufacturing Patterns and Trends
• Expanded explanation of the Primary, Tertiary and Quaternary Sector
• Table 10.2 added "Contribution of the Service Sector to Gross Domestic Product"

• Renewable resources, perpetual and potentially renewable resources defined
• Additional wind power information
• Coastal wetlands, forest resource and estuarine zone defined added back from fifth edition

• Table 12.1, 12.2, 12.3,12.5 updated data
• Added URL's to On-line Box: (Urban Geography Specialty Group, Canadian Urban Institute and The Urban Land Institute)
• Models of urban land use structure: concentric zone model, sector model and multi-nuclei model
• Definition of spatial mismatch