Waiting for a self-description from this Association

The SCG is one of the affiliated institutions of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans – IEC, a historical academic consortium for the development of scientific knowledge and the promotion of Catalan culture created in 1907 by Enric Prat de la Riba.

The SCG was founded in 1935 as a branch of the IEC and annexed to its Department of Sciences. It first president was Pau Vila that proudly represented the two traditional sides of the interest in geography of Catalan Civil society: the excursionist associations and the school teacher’s interest.

Unfortunately the activities of the SCG were abruptly stopped by the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and it was unable to maintain open public activities during the Franco’s regime. Following the difficult decades of the dictatorship, the SCG is now an important reference for people interested in geography in the country.

The goal of the SCG is to organize all sorts of rigorous scientific activities and to maintain an open debate in all areas of interest in relation to Catalonia and elsewhere in the world as Catalan geographers become increasingly internationalized. At present, the SCG is quite active and maintains a stable and heterogeneous membership of over 400 members. It organizes monthly conferences, and scientific debates besides workshops and field trips covering different aspects of Catalan reality or examples of the most recent research conducted in geography. Today the SCG maintains geography not only as an academic matter but an important social asset for the development of our community.

Since the 1980s the SCG publishes Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia that has become an important showcase of all the activities of this organization. On the other hand, the SCG has also undertaken a task of reedited classical works of Catalan Geographers. Please check our website for further information on our history, activities, membership and publications.

Societat Catalana de Geografia
Casa de Convalescència
Carrer del Carme, 47
08001 Barcelona

 http://scg.iec.cat/

Publications

Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia

Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia is a reference journal and is the main publication on Catalan geography. It has a section for articles, another one for publishing the lectures given at the Society, and a section with the activities of the Society. It covers human, regional as well as physical geography.

Published twice a year, since 1984.

Resum de Geografia de Catalunya

Resum de Geografia de Catalunya is part of a series of classical books on Catalan Geography.

Published annually

In 1901 the Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid, created in 1876, was granted by King Alfonso XIII the rank of royal society.

Like many other 19th-century European geographical societies, it was born in close relation to the political power. In fact, many other members were well-known politicians, among them several Prime Ministers as well as all kind of public men and scientists (geographers, cartographers, engineers, historians, geologists, etc.) engineers or army officers. At present, with around 400 members, the Real Sociedad Geográfica (R.S.G.) keeps sharing with the historic one a similar composition of their members and an extensive idea of the geographic knowledge.

From its beginnings, the (R.S.G.) collaborated actively with European and American geographers and was one of the seven societies that incorporated the International Geographical Union in 1922 acting from then as IGU’s Spanish Committee. In 1996 the Spanish Committee has been enlarged with other nationwide and regional geographical bodies and entities. There are such an ex officio permanent member of the R.S.G. as the Instituto Geográfico Nacional, and other State specialised and related to geography bodies (Cartography, Geology, Oceanography) beside the Instituto de Economía y Geografía (High Council for Scientific Research).

Such a wide and large network of scientific and institutional relations has bloomed into an intense geographic diffusion in meetings, congresses, courses, conferences and publications. In the early years since its creation in 1876, the Society took part in relevant discoveries and land penetration actions in the African spanish-influenced eastern coast (Morocco, West Sahara and the Gulf of Guinea). After this colonial concern for enlarging the world, in the first decades of the 20th century the Society was increasingly aware of Spain’s needs for improvement and paying attention to it

The Real Sociedad Geográfica’s activity in its more than 125 years of history has left as a precious inheritance an excellent specialised library, with more than 11,000 books, 12,700 booklets and 110 Spanish and foreign geographical journals, plus a large map collection with more than 700 maps, many of them dated in the 18th and 19th centuries and a few of them manuscript. This bibliographic and cartographic treasure is permanently hosted and accessible in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid. The Real Sociedad Geográfica is proud of its journal, Boletín de la Real Sociedad Geográfica, the oldest geographical journal published in Spain since 1876 . The most relevant geographers, historians, economists, geologists and many other specialists have been edited in it. The result of the Real Sociedad Geográfica’s publishing activity are around 50 books on subjects related to discoveries, expeditions and scientific travels, including the contributions of spanish geographers to several congresses and scientific meetings.

Publications

Boletín de la Real Sociedad Geografica

The Boletín covers the many subjects of field research, carried out by the society’s members. Consequently, the normal issues contain mostly contributions coming from academic geographers but are also devoted to Cartography, the Economy, the Natural Sciences and History as well. Occasionally issues have paid attention to specific topics such as: natural parks or South-American cities and publications are normally linked to such events as congresses or centenaries.

Published annually.

A.I.I.G. is a qualified Association for the training of the teaching staff, accredited to the MIUR (D. M. 27.02.2003).

It is an Institution dealing with the culture of the territory .

It is Member of  the European Standing Conference of Geography Teachers.

It is an Association for the Environmental Protection.

BETWEEN RESEARCH AND DIDACTICS FOR 50 YEARS

The AIIG, founded in Padua on April 22nd, 1954, has local Branches in all the Italian Regions and in almost all the Italian Provinces. The Association in fact, is made up of Regional Branches, that can be divided into Provincial, Interprovincial and City Branches.

The Italian Association of Geography Teachers works in order to fulfil the following aims:

a) promoting the meeting of geography teachers from any educational background and course of study;

b) fostering  scientific and didactic refresher courses for geography teachers and promoting the relationship with other subjects;

c) promoting the research and experimentation in teaching methodology in order to make teaching more and more effective;

d) protecting the teaching of geography in all the schools and institutions;

e) spreading the geographic education and culture at any level;

f) promoting the environmental knowledge and protection in the framework of a proper geographic and ecological education, according to a more functional management of the territory;

g) promoting the mutual international knowledge and understanding, the respect for multiculturality and diversity and the rights of all the populations to development and progress;

h) keeping in touch and exchanging experiences with other similar associations in Italy and abroad, particularly within the European Community; encouraging transnational projects, especially the ones devoted to the development of the European dimension.

Website: http://aiig.it/

The Society for Geographical Studies is recognized as a cultural organization by the Ministry for Education. It was founded in 1885 with the name The Society for Geographical and Colonial Studies following the setting up in 1884 of an independent organization, the Florentine Section of the Italian Africa Society. This in its turn was founded in Naples in 1882 and grew out of the African Club, with the aim of encouraging research interest in regions of Africa such as Ethiopia where a peaceful settlement movement was underway, subsequently transformed into military conquest. From its inception in 1885 the Florentine Section of the Italian Africa Society published a Bulletin dealing with questions regarding Africa, its geographical description, and the civil, political and economic activities that Italy was called upon to carry out there. The Bulletin existed until 1895 when publication was suspended and it was replaced by the Italian Geographical Review (The Rivista Geografica Italiana), founded in 1894. In 1895 the Review became the Society’s official organ and since then the Society and the Review have led a joint existence.

The Statute of the Society for Geographical and Colonial Studies was approved on 18th January 1896, altered slightly on 29th March 1903 and again on 24th March 1912 and abrogated in 1936 when the Society took its current name.

The Society for Geographical Studies currently has 480 members, most of whom are university lecturers, and middle school and high school teachers. The Society’s main aim is the promotion and support of initiatives which will serve the progress and spread of the geographical disciplines. To this end the Society publishes the Italian Geographical Review (Rivista Geografica Italiana), the Geographical Memories (Memorie Geografiche), organizes study meetings and participates in national and international research programmes.

President: Lidia Scarpelli

Secretary Cristina Capineri: capineri@unisi.it

Administration:  info@societastudigeografici.it

website: http://www.societastudigeografici.it/

Publications

Rivista Geografica Italiana , Italian Geographical Review

A peer reviewd journal; four issues per year; articles in foreign languages are accepted.

www.rivistageograficaitaliana.it

The Italian Geographical Society has been a free association since its foundation in 1867. Anyone can join who endorses the objectives in its Statute, which can be summarized as promoting the advancement of geographical knowledge.

As early as in 1869, the Italian State granted it the status of “moral entity” (non-profit foundation). More recently, the Society has been officially recognized as an environmentalist association. This administrative recognition is because the Society has always sought, and still does so, to make its heritage of assets and knowledge available to the general public, directly or indirectly via the use made of it by the Society itself. A constant feature of the Italian Geographical Society’s long life has been its interest in its country and citizens and in humanity as whole, within the modes and limits of a scientific-cultural association.

The Italian Geographical Society does not concern itself solely with applied research. The main goal of its policy is the advancement of geographical knowledge; expanding, updating or innovating knowledge but also fostering geographic culture and environmental awareness. The Society seeks to foster geographic culture and heritage in various ways. The first, obvious and traditional, is that of documentation: with approximately 300,000 volumes, the Society’s Library conserves the most important collection of specialized documentation in Italy, and one of the most significant in the world. The Map Library holds over 50,000 modern geographical maps, which is almost complete with regard to Italy’s territory and seas. There is also an Antique Collection, an Oriental Collection, more than 150,000 photographic images from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, and the Society’s Manuscript Archives. The collections are accessible to members and to all those applying to consult it; many of the works conserved are unique to the collection.

The Society also engages in activities intended to increase geographical knowledge. A wide-ranging ‘diplomatic’ initiative by the Society has been its invitation to the geographical associations of the EU countries to found a European Society for Geography, EUGEO. Also housed at the Italian Geographical Society is the Home of Geography, the permanent secretariat headquarters of the International Geographical Union.

Publishing activities remain essential for the exchange of ideas among scholars and for public awareness. The oldest Italian geographical magazine, and one of the oldest in the world, is the Society’s Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana: published since 1868. There is also a range of scientific monographs. The Society’s publications aim to present the results of Italian and international scientific geography, as well as essential news on the association’s activities, to members, who receive the Bollettino free.

Società Geografica Italiana
Villa Celimontana
Via della Navicella
00184 Roma
Italia

www.societageografica.it

segreteria@societageografica.it

Publications

Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana

Published uninterruptedly since 1868, it divides into two parts, the first consisting of a news section and the second of scientific articles.

Quarterly journal.

Memorie della Società Geografica Italiana

Collections of monographs on various topics, which constitute important tools for scientific investigation.

Two or three issues published a year.

Rapporto della Società Geografica Italiana

Intended to provide land management experts and professional geographers with a permanent observatory on the dynamics of Italian society and the country’s landscape.

Published annually.

Studi e Ricerche seriesks.

This series comprises a section of foreign-language publications, mainly in English, in the intention of reaching a broader international readership, thereby overcoming the difficulties of disseminating the results of Italian geographical research due to relatively scant knowledge of the Italian language abroad.

One or two issues published a year.

The Associazione dei Geografi Italiani is the youngest of the geographical associations in Italy: it came into being relatively recently, in 1978, and celebrated its first jubilee last year. However, its origins can be traced considerably further back in time. Previously, in fact, the interests of geographers working in Italy’s universities had been furthered by the Comitato dei Geografi Italiani (Co.Ge.I.), founded in 1967 and whose members were full professors in the geographical disciplines.

The association is open to all geographers working in various professional capacities at the country’s universities and took on the professional development of its members, the defence of the discipline within Italian academe, its promotion, both in Italy and abroad, and the organization of scientific meetings.

The principal task of the association is organization of the Italian Geographical Congresses, organized with the same four-year intervals as the international ones.

Annually, except in years when the association holds its Congresses, are, as well, organized the Giornate della Geografia, seminars intended to prompt reflection on themes of outstanding interest and to present the results of the association’s work groups. In fact, the association promotes research by supporting the formation of study groups and encouraging the international exchange of ideas.

It also ran fieldwork days in specific territorial areas: these inter-university excursions took the form of itinerant visits to regional areas and concentrated in particular on those most marginal to large-scale tourism.

The association also mounts various initiatives to develop relationships among its members – a purpose well served, for example, by the editing and updating of the Repertorio dei dipartimenti e insegnamenti di discipline geografiche nelle Università italiane (Directory of Italian University Geography Departments and Courses) and the Indirizzario dei docenti (List of Geography Lecturer Addresses).

President: Professor Franco Farinelli (University of Bologna) franco.farinelli@unibo.it

Publications

GEOTEMA

Published uninterruptedly since 1995, it takes the form of monographic issues on themes of particular importance and subjected to specific research carried out by AGEI groups comprising scholars working at national level and in Italian academic institutions. The journal consists only of scientific articles.

Three issues published a year

http://www.associazionegeografitaliani.it/

Awaiting details

SSAG was founded under its present name in 1877, as an extension of the activities of the Association for Anthropology founded in 1873. This was a time of great exploratory expeditions, and the SSAG took a particularly active part in the scientific description of the Arctic region, highlighted by the ‘Vega’ voyage through the passage north of Siberia led by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld in 1878-1879. The symbol of the Society shows a woman with laurel wreaths, a native with a globe, and the Vega ship at a rocky coast. The spirit of Nordenskiöld permeated much of SSAG’s activities with lectures and expeditions by geographer Otto Nordenskjöld to Antarctica in 1901-03, anthropologist Erland Nordenskiöld to South America and by explorer Sven Hedin to Central Asia. But SSAG’s activities also included research on Swedish Ethnology (Sigurd Erixon), Baltic urban geography (Sten De Geer) and the beginning of geopolitics (Rudolf Kjellén), to name a few of renowned members during the first fifty years. In recent years SSAG is more dedicated to the popularization of the three disciplines and to current topics, e.g. environmental degradation, physical planning, political geography and questions of underdevelopment. The gold medalists of later years include Eric Bylund 2000, Sherry B. Ortner 2001, Lonnie G. Thompson 2002, Doreen Massey 2003, Tim Ingold 2004 and Françoise Gasse 2005. The present activities of SSAG include meetings with lectures on topics of member interest annual meetings where doctoral students present ongoing research bi-annual excursions Vega day, April 24, when the Society’s medals are awarded and a symposium is held on a topic chosen by the medalist. scholarships granted to doctoral students for projects including travel and other expenses publications: Geografiska Annaler, series A, Physical Geography, Geografiska Annaler, series B, Human Geography (both in English) , Årsboken Ymer (in Swedish). SSAG co-operates with local and professional associations of Geographers and Anthropologists in Sweden and is a member of EUGEO, The European Geographical Society.

E-mail: sekreterare@ssag.se

Web site: ssag.se 

The first Slovak geographers would regularly participate in meetings and other events organized by Czechoslovak Geographical Society, dating back to 1894. In 1946 the branch in Bratislava was established named the Slovak Geographic Society led by Jan Hromádka.

The development of Slovak geography as a science, its wider penetration into the school system on all levels, and the continuous growth of personal background were the basic premises for the formation of independent geographical society. In 1955 the preparatory committee started to work (Mikuláš Koncek, Michal Lukniš a Ján Hanzlík) and on December 8th in 1955 the constitutive meeting of the Slovak Geographic Society under Slovak Academy of Sciences took place in Bratislava. Michal Lukniš had been elected the first chairman of the society.

In 1959 the first regional branch was established – the East Slovakian subsidiary in Prešov. The first meeting of the society took place in Bratislava in 1959. At this time the society registered 175 members. In the following period, further regional branches were established – the West Slovakian in Bratislava (in 1965) and the Central Slovakian in Banská Bystrica (in 1966). Furthermore, in 1960 the speleological branch was founded seating in Liptovský Mikuláš. The society had 372 members in 1967. The members would regularly meet at general assembly within the congress. Until now there took place 14 meetings (since 1998 they are called congresses) – in 1959, 1961 and 1991 in Bratislava, in 1964 in Košice, in 1967 in Liptovský Mikuláš, in 1970, 1986 and 2006 in Banská Bystrica, in 1974 and 2002 in Nitra, in 1978 in Levice, in 1982 and 1998 in Prešov and in 1994 in Castá. At the head of the society were Michal Lukniš (1955-1970), Pavol Plesník (1970-1974), Emil Mazúr (1974-1978), Ján Drdoš (1978-1986, 1990-1992), Oliver Bašovský (1986-1990), Michal Zatko (1992-1998), Jozef Mládek (1998-2006) and René Matlovic (since 2006).

At present there are eight geography workplaces (university departments and 1 research institute) representing the base of the Slovak geography in the six centres (Bratislava, Prešov, Banská Bystrica, Nitra, Košice and Ružomberok). Nowadays the Slovak Geographic Society has 300 geographers. It has five regional branches (Bratislava, the West Slovakian, the Central Slovakian, the East Slovakian, and Košice) and the three specialised committees (theoretical geography, applied geography, and school geography). Every four years the society organizes the congress, which includes the general assembly, the supreme body of the society. The last congress was in Banská Bystrica and the forthcoming congress is going to be held in Košice in 2010. The Slovak Geographical Society will organize the next EUGEO congress, which is going to be held in Bratislava in 2009.