Association of American Geographers

What Geographers Do


What is unique about geography and how does that inform what geographers do?




Geographic Subdisciplines and Sample Job Titles

To prepare today's students for tomorrow's workforce, the challenge is connecting disciplinary instruction with more general training that yields marketable and valued skills in the modern workplace. The data below identifies geographic and general/transferable skills with corresponding sample job titles. 


    Weather and Climate


    Natural Hazards

    Economic Geography

    Political Geography

    Cultural Geography

    Population Geography

    Human Environmental Interaction




    Remote Sensing

    Field Methods

    Spatial Statistics

    Regional Geography

    Spatial Thinking

    Global Perspective

    Interdisciplinary Perspective

    Diversity Perspective

    Subdiscipline definitions from: Solem, Michael; Ivan Cheung; and M. Beth Schlemper. Skills in Professional Geography: An Assessment of Workforce Needs and Expectations. The Professional Geographer 60, no. 3 (2008): 356-373.


Information about Geography Careers


Order the AAG Careers in Geography brochure.

Careers in Geography Brochure