What is the International

Geography Olympiad?

Thousands of students all over the world participate enthusiastically in National Geography Olympiads or competitions. The best of them compete in the International Geography Olympiad (iGeo). iGeo is a competition for the best 16 to 19 year old geography students from National Geography Olympiads. It is organised every other year. The competition consists of three parts: a written test, a multimedia test and a substantial field work exercise.

The International Geography Olympiad is organised by the International Geographical Union (IGU) Olympiad Task Force. The 5 members of the Task Force are:

1) co-chair Kathryn Berg (Australia)

2) co-chair Lex Chalmers (New Zealand)

3) the future local organiser Tomasz Sawicki (Poland)

4) the current local organiser Yoshi Ida (Japan)

5) the past local organiser Wolfgang Gerber (Germany).

Su- Min Shen(China Taipei), Fernando Garcia-Garcia (Mexico) and Sue Lomas (United Kingdom) are counsellors of the Task Force. Sue Lomas is also assessment director. Fernando Garcia -Garcia is together with Luc Zwartjes (Belgium) responsible for the multimedia test. Sue Lomas co-ordinates the written response test. Henk Ankoné (Netherlands), Lex Chalmers and the local organiser organise the fieldwork.

During the 1994 congress of the International Geographical Union (IGU) in Prague people from Poland and the Netherlands launched the idea of an International Geography Competition (iGeo) or Olympiad for students between 15 and 19 years of age. The first one was held in 1996 in the Hague, The Netherlands, with five participating countries, the second in 1998 in Lisbon, Portugal, and the third in 2000 in Seoul, South Korea. During the 2002 IGU congress in South Africa the fourth took place in Durban. The fifth in 2004 was in Gdansk, Poland. The sixth was in Brisbane, Australia, in 2006 with 23 participating countries. In 2008 in Carthage, Tunisia, 24 countries participated in the seventh iGeo. The 2010 iGeo was in Taipei with 30 countries. At the nineth Olympiad in 2012 in Cologne, Germany, there were 32 countries.

The next Olympiad wil be in 2013 in Kyoto, Japan. In 2014 the Olympiad will be in Krakow, Poland. The 2015 Olympiad will be held in Moscou, Russia, and the 2016 Olympoad in Beijing, China.

You can find information about the past iGeo's in the main menu of this website. The information about the past iGeo's is not always presented in the same format. Differences have to do with what the local organisers could sent us.

 
(c) www.geoolympiad.org - Onderwijscentrum VU - Joop van der Schee