The five themes of geography are an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 educational framework for teaching geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

. Adopted in 1984 by the National Council for Geographic Education

National Council for Geographic Education

The National Council for Geographic Education is a non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance the status and quality of geography teaching and learning. The NCGE was chartered in 1915 as the National Council of Geography Teachers, and adopted its current name in 1956...

 and the Association of American Geographers

Association of American Geographers

The Association of American Geographers is a non-profit scientific and educational society founded in 1904 and aimed at advancing the understanding, study, and importance of geography and related fields...

, the five themes were published in the NCGE/AAG publication Guidelines for Geographic Education, Elementary, and Secondary Schools. Most American geography and social studies

Social studies

Social studies is the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence," as defined by the American National Council for the Social Studies...

 classroom

Classroom

A classroom is a room in which teaching or learning activities can take place. Classrooms are found in educational institutions of all kinds, including public and private schools, corporations, and religious and humanitarian organizations...

s have adopted the five themes in teaching practices.

The five-theme organizational approach was superseded by the National Geography Standards, a set of eighteen standards promulgated in 1994. However, the five themes continue to be used as an educational approach in many educational outlets.

Themes

The five themes of geography are:

• Location
• Place
• Human-environment interactions
• Movement
• Region

Location

Location can be described in two different ways:

• Absolute location, a location as described by its latitude and longitude on the Earth
  Earth
  Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
  
  . For example, the coordinates of Albany, New York
  Albany, New York
  Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
  
   is 42°39′9.34"N 73°45′26.33"W
• Relative location, a location as described by where it is compared to something else. For example, Albany, New York
  Albany, New York
  Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
  
   is roughly 150 miles north of New York City
  New York City
  New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
  
  .

Place

Place is the description of what it is like to live in a certain place.
Examples are government types, climate, diet, etc.

Human-environment interaction

How people interact with the environment, and how the environment responds. Scientists currently are debating how much the environment has changed in response to how humans have emitted certain pollutants into the atmosphere.

Movement

Movement

Movement

-In society and the arts:* Social movement, a coordinated group action focused on a political or social issue* Political movement, a coordinated group action focused on a political issue* Art movement, a tendency or style in art followed by a group of artists...

 is the travel

Travel

Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...

 of people

People

People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:* as the plural of person or a group of people People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:*...

, good

Good (economics and accounting)

In economics, a good is something that is intended to satisfy some wants or needs of a consumer and thus has economic utility. It is normally used in the plural form—goods—to denote tangible commodities such as products and materials....

s and idea

Idea

In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images...

s from one location to another or political events. Examples of movement include America's

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 westward expansion, the Information Revolution, and immigration

Immigration

Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...

. New devices such as the airplane and the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

allow physical and ideological goods to be transferred long distances in short time intervals. The travel of oneself from place to place, and the actions they do there, is also considered movement.

Region

Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of areas that are distinctive by their uniformity of description based on a range of statistical data, for example demographic, and locales. In astrophysics some regions have science-specific terms such as galactic clusters.
ex. The United States is a POLITICAL region because it shares the same govenrment system