Geography is exciting and relevant. You’ll enjoy Geography if you’re interested in the worlds around you and want to make a positive difference. Geography addresses a wide range of contemporary challenges such as: climate change and sea-level rise, dirty rivers, uneven economic development, sustainable communities, migration, housing and health policy, urban pollution, indigenous rights, and environmental management.

Geographers study places, human and physical interactions and the processes that shape those interactions. They explore why nations, regions, cities and communities develop differently in different settings, how landscapes are formed, how social, economic and natural landscapes are related, and how to make better worlds by responding effectively to human-environment problems.

The University of Auckland Geography programme is the highest-ranking in New Zealand, and 30th in the world. As geographers we study what’s special about places, and our programme highlights Auckland and Aotearoa/New Zealand: its distinctive topography and coastline, fascinating cultural and economic history, exciting social diversity, and innovative responses to environmental challenges. We include Māori and indigenous knowledges across our teaching curriculum and research programmes. We also acknowledge Auckland’s Pacific character and connections to island nations as well as links with Southeast Asia and beyond. You can study Geography as an undergraduate major or postgraduate specialisation in either the Faculty of Science or Faculty of Arts programmes.

Geographers ask questions about places and the relations between physical and human drivers that shape them. Human geographers focus attention on social change and the cultural, economic, and social processes that drive change. Physical geographers study the biophysical world, and the processes which change it. Many geographers also study the interactions between physical and social processes, how these are managed, and how they might be better managed.

Courses in Geography stretch from the study of coastal and river processes and landforms, to climatology, biogeography, hydrology, environmental change, environmental management, rural and urban development, housing, population change, policy formation, and socio-economic change.

As a Geography student you’ll have the chance to study the monitoring and analysis of weather, waves, tides, soils, sediments and rivers; cultural and economic practices; the interpretation of physical and cultural landscapes; mapping, cartography, geovisualisation and modelling; and the experiences of particular groups in society. You will explore these subjects both in the classroom and, importantly, through fieldwork, which forms an integral part of studying Geography.