The National Geographic Society

The National Geographic Society - just the facts

The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the world's largest not-for-profit educational & scientific organizations. Its interests include geography & natural science, the promotion of environmental & historical conservation, & the study of world culture & history.

Its historical mission is "to increase & diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural, historical, & natural resources." Its President & CEO since March 1998, John M. Fahey, Jr., says National Geographic's purpose is to inspire people to care about their planet. The Society is governed by a twenty-three member Board of Trustees composed of a group of distinguished educators, businesspeople, scientists, former governmental officials, & conservationists. The organization sponsors & funds scientific research & exploration. The Society publishes an official journal, National Geographic Magazine, & other magazines, books, school products, maps, other publications, web & film products in numerous languages & countries around the world. It also has an educational foundation that gives grants to education organizations & individuals to enhance geography education. Its Committee for Research & Exploration has given grants for scientific research for most of the Society's history & has recently awarded its 9,000th grant for scientific research, conducted worldwide & often reported on by its media properties. Its various media properties reach about 360 million people around the world monthly. National Geographic maintains a museum free for the public in its Washington, D.C. headquarters, & has helped to sponsor such popular traveling exhibits such as the "King Tut" exhibit featuring magnificent artifacts from the tomb of the young Egyptian Pharoah, & currently touring in several American cities, presently in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute.

History
The National Geographic Society was founded in Washington, D.C. on January 27, 1888, by 33 explorers & scientists who were interested in "organizing a society for the increase & diffusion of geographical knowledge." They had begun discussing forming the Society two weeks earlier on January 13, 1888, before gathering at the Cosmos Club, a private club then located on Lafayette Square near the White House. Gardiner Greene Hubbard became its first president & his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, eventually succeeded him in 1897 following his death. Bell's son-in-law Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor was named the first full-time editor of National Geographic Magazine & served the organization for fifty-five years, & members of the Grosvenor family have played important roles in the organization since. Bell & his son-in-law, Grosvenor, devised the successful marketing notion of Society membership & the first major use of photographs to tell stories in magazines. The current Chairman of the Board of Trustees of National Geographic is Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 for the Society's leadership for Geography education. In 2004, the National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, D.C. was one of the first buildings to receive a "Green" certification from Global Green USA. The National Geographic received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Communications & Humanity in October 2006 in Oviedo, Spain.

National Geographic Magazine

The National Geographic Magazine, later shortened to National Geographic, published its first issue nine months after the Society was founded as the Society's official journal, a benefit for joining the tax exempt National Geographic Society. The magazine has had for many years a trademarked yellow border around the edge of its cover.

There are 12 monthly issues of National Geographic per year, plus at least four additional map supplements. On rare occasions, special issues of the magazine are also created. The magazine contains articles about geography, popular science, world history, culture, current events & photography of places & things all over the world & universe. The National Geographic magazine is currently published in 31 language editions in many countries around the world. Combined English & other language circulation is nearly nine million monthly with more than fifty million readers monthly.

In addition to its flagship magazine, the Society publishes five other periodicals in the United States:

National Geographic Kids: launched in 1975 as National Geographic World, name changed in 2001. There are currently 15 local language editions of NG Kids. An Arabic edition of the childrens' magazine was launched in Egypt in early 2007.
National Geographic Little Kids: for children aged 3-6.
National Geographic Traveler: launched in 1984. There are seven language editions of NG Traveler.
National Geographic Adventure: launched in 1999
National Geographic Explorer: classroom magazine launched in 2001 as National Geographic for Kids, which has grown to about 2 1/2 million circulation.
The Society also runs an online news outlet, National Geographic News.

The Society previously published:

The National Geographic School Bulletin, magazine similar to the National Geographic but aimed at grade school children, was published weekly during the school year from 1919 to 1975, when it was replaced by National Geographic World.
During the 1980s & 1990s, it published a research journal which later closed.
The Society has also published maps, atlases, & numerous books.

National Geographic Channel
Stories by the National Geographic Society are shown on television. National Geographic specials as well as television series have been shown on PBS & other networks in the United States & globally for many years. The Geographic series in the U.S. started on CBS in 1964, moved to ABC in 1973 & shifted to PBS (produced by WQED, Pittsburgh) in 1975. It has featured stories on numerous scientific figures such as Louis Leakey, Jacques Cousteau, or Jane Goodall that not only featured their work but helped make them world-famous & accessible to millions. The specials' theme music, by Elmer Bernstein, was also adopted by the National Geographic Channel. The National Geographic Channel has begun to launch a number of subbranded channels in international markets, such as Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Adventure, Nat Geo Junior, & Nat Geo Music.

In 1997, internationally, & in 2001 in the United States, the Society launched, in part ownership with other entities like News Corporation, the National Geographic Channel, a television channel with global distribution for cable & satellite viewers.

National Geographic Films, a wholly-owned taxable subsidiary of the National Geographic Society, has also produced a feature film based on the diary of a Russian submarine commander starring Harrison Ford in K-19: The Widowmaker, & most recently retooling a French-made documentary for U.S. distribution with a new score & script narrated by Morgan Freeman called March of the Penguins, which received an Academy Award for the Best Documentary in 2006. After a record $77 million theatrical gross in the United States, over four million DVD copies of March of the Penguins have been sold. National Geographic Films will be launching a new feature film late this summer called "An Arctic Tale," featuring the story of two families of walrus & polar bears. Queen Latifah is the narrator of this film. National Geographic Films is co-producing with Edward Norton & Brad Pitt the 10-hour mini series of Steven Ambrose's award-winning "Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson & the Opening of the American West" for HBO. The National Geographic website (nationalgeographic.com) provides a wealth of content in multimedia formats, including a recently launched site highlighting world music.

Support for research & projects
The Society has helped sponsor many expeditions & research projects over the years, including:

Codex Tchacos - (conservation & translation of the only known surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas)
Ian Baker (Discovers hidden waterfall of the Tsangpo Gorge, Tibet)
Robert Ballard - (RMS Titanic & John F. Kennedy's PT-109 discovery)
Robert Bartlett - (Arctic Exploration)
George Bass - (Undersea archaeology - Bronze Age trade)
Lee Berger - (Oldest footprints of modern humans ever found)
Hiram Bingham - (Machu Picchu Excavation)
Richard E. Byrd - (First flight over South Pole)
Jacques-Yves Cousteau - (Undersea exploration)
Mike Fay - (MegaTransect & MegaFlyover in Africa)
Dian Fossey - (Mountain gorillas)
Birute Galdikas - (Orangutans)
Jane Goodall - (Chimpanzees)
Robert F. Griggs - (Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes)
Heather Halstead - World Circumnavigations of Reach the World
Louis & Mary Leakey - (Discovery of manlike Zinjanthropus, more than 1.75 million years old)
Gustavus McLeod - (First flight to the North Pole in an open-air cockpit aircraft)
Robert Peary & Matthew Henson - (North Pole Expedition)
Paul Sereno - (Dinosaurs)
Will Steger - (Polar Exploration & First Explorer-in-Residence 1996)
Jonathan B. Tourtellot - Geotourism Forum Editor at Traveler.
Spencer Wells - (The Genographic Project)
Xu Xing - (Discovery of fossil dinosaurs in China that have distinct feathers)
The Society supports many socially-based projects including AINA, a Kabul-based organization dedicated to developing an independent Afghan media, which was founded by one of the Society's most famous photographers, Reza.

The Society also sponsors the National Geographic Bee, an annual geographic contest for American middle-school students. More than four million students a year begin the geography competition locally, which culminates in a national competition of the winners of each state each May in Washington, D.C. Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek has moderated the final competition since the competition began some seventeen years ago. Every two years, the Society conducts an international geography competition of competing teams from all over the world. The most recent was held in Budapest, Hungary during the summer of 2005, & had representatives from 18 country teams. The next international competition will occur in August at Marineworld in San Diego, California.

Hubbard Medal

Anne Lindbergh's customized medal detailing her flight routeThe Hubbard Medal is awarded by the National Geographic Society for distinction in exploration, discovery, & research. The medal is named for Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the first National Geographic Society president. The Hubbard Medal has been presented 34 times as of 2000, the most recent award going posthumously to Matthew Henson, Robert Peary's fellow arctic explorer.

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