National Geographic, formerly the
National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the
National Geographic SocietyThe National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...
. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded. It is immediately identifiable by the characteristic yellow frame that surrounds its front cover.
There are 12 monthly issues of the National Geographic per year, plus additional map supplements. On rare occasions, special editions are issued. It contains articles about geography, popular science, history, culture, current events, and photography.
With a late-2011 worldwide circulation in thirty-three language editions
of nearly nine million, more than five million people receive the magazine every month in the U.S.
In May 2007, 2008, and 2010 National Geographic magazine won the
American Society of Magazine EditorsThe American Society of Magazine Editors is an industry trade group for editors of magazines published in the United States. The group advocates on behalf of member organizations with respect to First Amendment issues, and serves as a networking hub for editors and other industry employees...
' General Excellence Award in the over two million circulation category. In 2010, National Geographic Magazine received the top ASME awards for photojournalism and essay.
Administration
The current Editor-in-Chief of the National Geographic Magazine is
Chris JohnsChris Johns is a prize-winning photographer who spent many years in Africa for National Geographic Magazine and is the first photographer ever to be named Editor-in-Chief of the publication, the position he has held since 2005. Under Johns' leadership, National Geographic received the General...
, who was named Editor of the Year in October 2008 by
Advertising AgeAdvertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
magazine at the American Magazine Conference.
Society Executive Vice President and President of the Magazine Group Declan Moore has overall responsibility for magazines at the National Geographic Society. He reports to Tim Kelly, President, National Geographic Global Media, and new National Geographic Society president. Terry B. Adamson, Executive Vice President of the Society and the Society's chief legal officer and heads governmental relations, has overall responsibility for the Society's international publications, including National Geographic magazine.
History
The first issue of National Geographic Magazine was published in October 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded. The hallmark of National Geographic, reinventing it from a text-oriented entity closer to a scientific journal, to a magazine famous for exclusive pictorial footage, was its January 1905 publication of several full-page pictures made in Tibet in 1900–1901 by two explorers from the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
,
Gombojab TsybikovGombojab Tsybikov , was a Russian explorer of Tibet from 1899 to 1902. Tsybikov specialized in social anthropology, ethnography, Buddhist Studies, and for some time after 1917 was an important educator and statesman in Siberia and Mongolia....
and Ovshe Norzunov. The June 1985 cover portrait of 13-year-old Afghan girl
Sharbat GulaSharbat Gula is an Afghan woman who was the subject of a famous photograph by journalist Steve McCurry. Gula was living as a refugee in Pakistan during the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when she was photographed...
became one of the magazine's most recognizable images.
In the late 1990s and 2000s, prolonged litigation over copyright of the magazine as a collective work in
Greenberg v. National GeographicGreenberg v. National Geographic was a copyright lawsuit regarding image use and republication rights of National Geographic to their magazine in electronic form.-Details:...
and other cases caused National Geographic to withdraw from the market The Complete National Geographic, a digital compilation of all its past issues of the magazine. Two different federal appellate courts have now ruled in National Geographics favor in permitting an electronic reproduction of the paper magazine and the U.S. Supreme Court denied
certiorariCertiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
in December 2008. In July 2009 National Geographic announced a new version of The Complete National Geographic, containing all issues of the magazine from 1888 through December 2008. An updated version was released the next year, adding the issues from 2009; these issues are also available on a separate disc for owners of the original version. Updates for subsequent years of the magazine's archive are scheduled to be made available on an annual basis.
In 2006, National Geographic writer
Paul SalopekPaul Salopek is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer. Salopek was raised in central Mexico.-Life:Salopek received a degree in environmental biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1984...
was arrested and charged with espionage, entering
SudanSudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
without a visa, and other crimes by the
government of SudanOfficially, the politics of Sudan takes place in the framework of a presidential representative democratic consociationalist republic, where the President of Sudan is Head of State, Head of Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces in a multi-party system...
while on assignment for a feature article. After National Geographic and the
Chicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, for whom Salopek also wrote, mounted a legal defense and led an international appeal to Sudan, he was eventually released.
Articles
During the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, the magazine committed itself to presenting a balanced view of the physical and human geography of nations beyond the
Iron CurtainThe concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
. The magazine printed articles on Berlin,
de-occupied AustriaThe Austrian State Treaty or Austrian Independence Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state. It was signed on May 15, 1955, in Vienna at the Schloss Belvedere among the Allied occupying powers and the Austrian government...
, the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and Communist China that deliberately downplayed politics to focus on culture. In its coverage of the
Space RaceThe Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
, National Geographic focused on the scientific achievement while largely avoiding reference to the race's connection to nuclear arms buildup.
In later years articles became outspoken on issues such as environment, deforestation, chemical pollution,
global warmingGlobal warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, and endangered species. Series of articles were included focusing on the history and varied uses of specific products such as a single metal, gem, food crop, or agricultural product, or an archaeological discovery. Occasionally an entire month's issue would be devoted to a single country, past civilization, a natural resource whose future is endangered, or other theme. In recent decades, the National Geographic Society has unveiled other magazines with different focuses. Whereas in the past, the Magazine featured lengthy expositions, recent issues have shorter, but nevertheless tighter articles.
Photography
In addition to being well-known for articles about scenery, history, and the most distant corners of the world, the magazine has been recognized for its book-like quality and its standard of
photographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. This standard makes it the home to some of the highest-quality
photojournalismPhotojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism...
in the world. The magazine began to feature
color photographyColor photography is photography that uses media capable of representing colors, which are traditionally produced chemically during the photographic processing phase...
in the early 20th century, when this technology was still rare. During the 1930s,
Luis MardenLuis Marden was an American photographer, explorer, writer, filmmaker, diver, navigator, and linguist who worked for National Geographic Magazine. He worked as a photographer and reporter before serving as chief of the National Geographic foreign editorial staff...
(1913–2003), a writer and photographer for National Geographic, convinced the magazine to allow its photographers to use small 35 mm cameras loaded with
KodachromeKodachrome is the trademarked brand name of a type of color reversal film that was manufactured by Eastman Kodak from 1935 to 2009.-Background:...
film over bulkier cameras with
tripodIn photography, a tripod is used to stabilize and elevate a camera, or to support flashes or other photographic equipment. All photographic tripods have three legs and a mounting head to couple with a camera...
s and
glass platesPhotographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile...
. In 1959, the magazine started publishing small photographs on its covers, later becoming larger photographs. National Geographic photography has quickly shifted to digital photography for both its magazine on paper and its website. In subsequent years, the magazine cover, while keeping its yellow border, shed its oak leaf trim and bare table of contents, for a large photograph taken from one of the month's articles inside. Issues of National Geographic are often kept by subscribers for years and re-sold at thrift stores as collectible back-issues. In 2006, National Geographic began an international photography competition with over eighteen countries participating.
In conservative Muslim countries like
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and
Malaysia, photographs featuring topless or scantily-clad members of primitive tribal societies are often
blacked outthumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
; buyers and subscribers often complain that this practice decreases the artistic value of the photographs for which National Geographic is world-renowned.
See also:
Red Shirt School of PhotographyThe Red Shirt School of Photography is a trend in photography which first became popular in the 1950s. It was pioneered by National Geographic photographers, who had subjects wear, or chose subjects who wore overly colorful clothes...
Map supplements
Supplementing the articles, the magazine sometimes provides
mapA map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....
s of the regions visited.
National Geographic MapsNational Geographic Maps, founded in 1915, is a wholly owned division of the National Geographic Society. The Maps division is responsible for the creation of Society cartographic products including page maps in National Geographic Magazine, travel maps, wall maps, atlases, TOPO! mapping software,...
(originally the Cartographic Division) became a division of the National Geographic Society in 1915. The first supplement map, which appeared in the May 1918 issue of the magazine, titled The Western Theatre of War, served as a reference for overseas military personnel and soldier's families alike. On some occasions, the Society's map archives have been used by the United States government in instances where its own
cartographicCartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...
resources were limited.
PresidentThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's
White HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
map room was filled with National Geographic maps. A National Geographic map of Europe is featured in the displays of the
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
museumThe Churchill War Rooms is a museum in London and one of the five branches of the Imperial War Museum. The museum comprises the Cabinet War Rooms, a historic underground complex that housed a British government command centre throughout the Second World War, and the Churchill Museum, a biographical...
in London showing Churchill's markings at the
Yalta ConferenceThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
where the
AlliedThe Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
leaders divided
post-warWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Europe.
In 2001, National Geographic released an eight-
CD-ROMA CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
set containing all its maps from 1888 to December 2000. Printed versions are also available from
NGMapcollection.com.
Language editions
In 1995, National Geographic began publishing in Japanese, its first local language edition. The magazine is currently published in 34 language editions around the world, including English on a worldwide basis,
ArabicArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
,
BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
,
traditional and simplified character ChineseThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
,
CroatianCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
,
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, Danish,
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek,
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
and an Orthodox Hebrew edition, Hungarian,
IndonesianIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, two
Portuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
editions,
RomanianRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, Russian,
SerbianSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, Slovene, two
Spanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
editions, Swedish,
ThaiThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
, and
TurkishTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
.
Recently launched local-language editions: Lithuanian (October 2009), Arabic (October 2010, published in 15 countries across the Middle East and North Africa), Estonian (October 2011).
| Language |
Website |
Editor-in-chief |
First issue |
| English |
www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm |
Chris Johns Chris Johns is a prize-winning photographer who spent many years in Africa for National Geographic Magazine and is the first photographer ever to be named Editor-in-Chief of the publication, the position he has held since 2005. Under Johns' leadership, National Geographic received the General...
|
October 1888 |
ArabicArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
|
ngalarabiya.com |
Mohammed Al-Hamady |
October 2010 |
BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
|
www.nationalgeographic.bg |
Krassimir Drumev |
November 2005 |
Chinese (Mainland China)The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
|
ngmchina.com.cn |
Ye Nan |
July 2007 |
Chinese (Taiwan)The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
|
www.ngm.com.tw |
Roger Pan |
January 2001 |
CroatianCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
|
www.nationalgeographic.com.hr |
Hrvoje Prćić |
November 2003 |
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
|
www.national-geographic.cz |
Tomáš Tureček |
October 2002 |
| Danish |
www.nationalgeographic.dk |
Karen Gunn |
September 2000 |
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
(Netherlands/Belgium) |
www.nationalgeographic.nl |
Aart Aarsbergen |
October 2000 |
| Estonian |
www.national-geographic.ee |
Erkki Peetsalu |
October 2011 |
| Finnish |
www.nationalgeographic-suomi.com |
Karen Gunn |
January 2001 |
| French |
www.nationalgeographic.fr |
François Marot |
October 1999 |
| German |
www.nationalgeographic.de |
Erwin Brunner |
October 1999 |
| Greek |
www.nationalgeographic.gr |
Maria Atmatzidou |
October 1998 |
| Hungarian |
www.geographic.hu |
Tamás Schlosser |
March 2003 |
| Hebrew |
|
Daphne Raz |
June 1998 (Orthodox Hebrew edition: April 2007) |
IndonesianIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
|
www.nationalgeographic.co.id |
Yunas Santhani Azis |
March 2005 |
| Italian |
www.nationalgeographic.it |
Guglielmo Pepe |
February 1998 |
| Japanese |
www.nationalgeographic.jp |
Hiroyuki Fujita |
April 1995 |
| Korean (South Korea) |
www.nationalgeographic.co.kr |
Kay Wang |
January 2000 |
LithuanianLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
|
www.nationalgeographic.lt |
Frederikas Jansonas |
October 2009 |
| Norwegian |
www.nationalgeographic.no |
Karen Gunn |
September 2000 |
| Polish |
www.nationalgeographic.pl |
Martyna Wojciechowska Marta Eliza Wojciechowska is Polish television presenter, journalist, traveller and writer. She is a trained economist...
|
October 1999 |
Portuguese (BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
) |
nationalgeographic.abril.com.br |
Matthew Shirts |
May 2000 |
| Portuguese (Portugal) |
www.nationalgeographic.pt |
Gonçalo Pereira |
April 2001 |
RomanianRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
|
www.national-geographic.ro |
Cristian Lascu |
May 2003 |
| Russian |
www.national-geographic.ru |
Andrei Doubrovski |
October 2003 |
SerbianSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
|
www.nationalgeographic-srbija.com |
Igor Rill |
November 2006 |
| Slovene |
www.nationalgeographic.si |
Marija Javornik |
April 2006 |
| Spanish (Latin America Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
) |
http://natgeo.televisa.com |
Omar Lopez |
November 1997 |
| Spanish (Spain) |
www.nationalgeographic.com.es |
Josep Cabello |
October 1997 |
| Swedish |
www.nationalgeographic.se |
Karen Gunn |
September 2000 |
ThaiThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
|
www.ngthai.com |
Kowit Phadungruangkij |
August 2001 |
| Turkish Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
|
www.nationalgeographic.com.tr |
Nesibe Bat |
May 2001 |
In April 2005, an
IndonesiaIndonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n edition launched, published by Gramedia Majalah. A
BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
edition of the magazine published by a Sanoma Publishing joint venture launched in November, 2005 and a Slovenian edition published by Rokus launched in May, 2006. In association with Trends Publications in Beijing and IDG Asia, National Geographic has been authorized for "copyright cooperation" in China to publish the yellow border magazine, which launched with the July 2007 issue of the magazine with an event in Beijing on July 10, 2007 and another event on December 6, 2007 in Beijing also celebrating the 29th anniversary of normalization of U.S.–China relations featuring former President
Jimmy CarterJames Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
. A Serbian edition of National Geographic was launched with the November 2006 issue in partnership with a joint venture of Sanoma and Gruner + Jahr.
In contrast to the United States, where membership in the National Geographic Society was until recently the only way to receive the magazine, the worldwide editions are sold on newsstands in addition to regular subscriptions. In several countries, such as Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and Turkey, National Geographic paved the way for a subscription model in addition to traditional newsstand sales.
Huaxia Geographic
The Mainland Chinese edition (CNY20.00) features a few articles written in Chinese, and the original translated text is truncated or even deleted. So the Taiwanese Chinese edition is also sold in China, with a relatively high price (labelled CNY50.00, but generally sold CNY38.00).
Awards
On May 1, 2008, National Geographic won three National Magazine Awards—an award solely for its written content—in the reporting category for an article by
Peter HesslerPeter Hessler is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of three acclaimed books about China and has contributed numerous articles to The New Yorker and National Geographic, among other publications...
on the
Chinese economyThe People's Republic of China ranks since 2010 as the world's second largest economy after the United States. It has been the world's fastest-growing major economy, with consistent growth rates of around 10% over the past 30 years. China is also the largest exporter and second largest importer of...
; an award in the photojournalism category for work by
John StanmeyerJohn Stanmeyer , is a celebrated American photojournalist based in Otis, Massachusetts.He is best known for his contributions to TIME Magazine and National Geographic. His work centered on Asian and Middle-Eastern political and human rights issues for the past 11 years and more recently on the...
on
malariaMalaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
in the
Third WorldThe term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
; and a prestigious award for general excellence.
Controversy
Linda Steet in her book Veils and Daggers: A Century of National Geographic's Representation of the Arab World criticizes National Geographic for its Lutz and Collins in their book Reading National Geographic argue that National Geographic is intimately tied to the American establishment and "cultivates ties to government officials and corporate interests". Rothenberg suggests that National Geographic, as a part of mainstream popular culture, has historically helped to articulate a particularly American identity in opposition to "both old Europe and primitive non-Western regions... an identity of civic and technological superiority but yet, a distinctly benign and friendly identity".
The book Reading National Geographic notes how photos are sometimes electronically manipulated. In one photo of bare-breasted Polynesian women, the skin color was darkened. Women with light skin have not appeared topless in the magazine. The book also documents how NG photographers have encouraged their subjects to change costumes when their clothing was seen as "too drab" for the magazine. Summarizing an analysis of NG photographs from 1950 to 1986, the authors argue the following themes: "The people of the
thirdThe term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
and
fourthFourth World refers to a sub-population subjected to social exclusion in global society, or stateless and notably impoverished or marginalized nations.Fourth World may also refer to:...
worlds are portrayed as exotic; they are idealized; they are naturalized and taken out of all but a single historical narrative; and they are sexualized. Several of these themes wax and wane in importance through the postwar period, but none is ever absent."
See also
- GEO
GEO is a family of educational monthly magazines similar to the National Geographic magazine. It is known for its profound reports, which are accompanied by opulent pictures.The first edition appeared in Germany in 1976...
, Germany
- Vokrug sveta
Vokrug sveta is the oldest magazine in the Russian language, still being published . The first issue was printed in Saint Petersburg, in December 1861, almost thirty years before the establishment of the National Geographic Magazine...
(Russian: Around the World)
- Chinese National Geography
Chinese National Geography is a Chinese monthly magazine similar to the National Geographic Magazine. Founded in 1949 in China, the magazine has revamped itself several times, and is now a popular magazine in mainland China...
(founded in 1949)
Further reading
- Roger M. Poole, Explorers House: National Geographic and the World it Made, 2004; reprint, Penguin Press, 2006, ISBN 9780143035930
- Stephanie L. Hawkins, American Iconographic: "National Geographic," Global Culture, and the Visual Imagination, University of Virginia Press, 2010, ISBN9780813929668, 264 pages. A scholarly study of the magazine's rise as a cultural institution that uses the letters of its founders and its readers; argues that National Geographic encouraged readers to question Western values and identify with others.
- Moseley, W.G. 2005. “Reflecting on National Geographic Magazine and Academic Geography: The September 2005 Special Issue on Africa” African Geographical Review. 24: 93–100.
External links