Geography

BrainWhy geography at UVic? featureOur programs featureApplying to UVic
students and instructors gather around map

UVic Map Shop

The UVic Map Shop is a community-campus initiative dedicated to collaborative place-based learning and mapping. Operated by UVic Geography, the Map Shop's mission is to facilitate processes for community engagement, student learning, globally-relevant research, and sustainable community planning through participatory community mapping.

Map Shop
Vanier scholarship recipient smiling

PhD student receives Vanier scholarship

Vanier scholar, Lusungu Kayani Stearns is a doctoral researcher in geography. She is studying the informal waste sector, specifically the people who contribute to recovering waste in African cities.

These scholars are the next generation of top-tier doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers in health, natural sciences and engineering, and social sciences and humanities. 

Vanier scholarship recipient
Close up image of salmon smolt being measured

Field experience

With field schools and lots of opportunities for hands-on learning, you'll never get stuck at your desk. Geography field study courses foster experiential learning and other ways of knowing, both locally and around the globe. Photo: Measuring a salmon smolt, Indigenous Knowledge Field School 2019, Kear Porttris

Field schools
Student in a lab testing water samples

Undergraduate studies

Study what you're passionate about and make a difference in the world around you with our flexible programs—out in the community, on campus, in the field, or in the lab. Geography bridges the gap between science and humanities, integrating fields like economics, ecology, political studies, urban design, resource management, human health, and climatology.

Undergraduate
Student poses with Maasai youth in front of a stone wall

Graduate studies

Our graduate program engages with communities through place-based, experiential research. MA Student Kate Herchak (Inuk) worked with Maasai youth through photo-voice methodology to explore their role in local economies. This research is a part of a larger project to bridge Indigenous knowledge between Canada and Tanzania.

Graduate
Student standing between moss covered rock walls in front of a small waterfall

Co-op education

Our students get relevant work experience through the co-op program. Work terms can take place in the public and private sectors, with many opportunities based in local, provincial, or federal government departments. Rachel Stewart-Dziama was a Parks Canada interpreter in Ucluelet during one of her co-op terms.

Co-op education
Denise Cloutier

Research that makes an impact

Lives are lived across time and space. Dr. Denise Cloutier and her research team work with older adults as community co-researchers with lived expertise, to explore questions about how our environment, and the places we call ‘home’, influence our health, quality of life, and quality of dying.

Research

Understanding people and their environment

Geography asks how we impact the natural world and how it impacts us. We view problems from multiple perspectives, including physical science, social science and humanities approaches.

Our students gain the specific set of tools needed to solve new and complex challenges in the environment and in the world around us.

Want to understand how human-environment interactions impact the world? Looking for hands-on learning opportunities in the field? 

Territory acknowledgment
We acknowledge and respect the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional territory the university stands, and the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.

Find your edge in UVic's Department of Geography.

Undergraduate

current students

Undergraduate studies

Graduate

future students

Graduate studies

Research

research and teaching

Research