There are several important reasons to study geographi-cal learning. First, knowledge of geographical or larger scale space is important for effective functioning in the modern world. Recent data show that American children and even adults have very little knowledge of world geog-raphy, leading to concern that the country is ill-equipped to consider important questions concerning international relations and an increasingly global economy (Liben & Downs, 1994). Second, studying geographical learning offers a real and complex context in which to examine the integration and the interaction of information from many disciplines and knowledge domains. Learning ge-ography requires more than simply encoding the spatial layout of cities and countries. It also involves learning the nature of the environments and climates in which these places are embedded, what natural resources these places possess, and the human aspects of such spatial contexts, such as cultures, political systems, and economic ac-tivities (National Geographic Research and Exploration, 1994). Third, in recent years, people working with geo-graphic information systems (GISs) have called for input from cognitive scientists, because understanding of how human minds process geographical information is vital to building and improving the application of GIS tech-