15Geographical Tips
“For one country is different from another; its earth is different, as are its stones, wines, bread, meat, and everything that grows and thrives in a specific region.”
— Paracelsus (1493–1541)
A WORLD OF MEMORY
Geography is a good example of a subject that draws upon a broad range of cortical skills, including the spatial and analytical skills involved in drawing, reading and interpreting maps, graphs and diagrams. Memory plays a key role in this subject, as a knowledge of facts is essential. You’ll need a good grasp of river systems, earthquakes, volcanoes, erosion, climate, weather systems, and soil, as well as an understanding of human geography, including population, town planning, transport and economic development.
With so much data to learn, it’s got to be worthwhile investing in a system that can help you absorb it all swiftly and efficiently, so that you can get on with the task of understanding and applying it.
Your studies may include a comprehensive analysis of one particular country. The best way to build up such a dossier on a specific country is to prepare a separate and familiar location for it. All data relating to Germany, for example, could be stored in the form of key images at a friend’s house, while statistics relating to the Netherlands might be kept in a shopping precinct. If you have visited the country in question and know a specific location there, use that as the basis of your mental file.
Once you have designated a “place” for each country, you can start filing away facts and statistics by converting numbers into key people using the DOMINIC System. Choose a key image for each type of information or statistic, such as popcorn to denote population.
To remember that the population of the Netherlands is 16 million, first transport yourself to the shopping mall and create an image of Arnold Schwarzenegger (AS = 16) handing out popcorn to crowds of fans.
The most famous image of Britain is Big Ben and the House of Commons, so why not use that area to store all the statistics on Britain? Imagine Gone with the Wind heroine Scarlett O’Hara (SO = 60), for example, clinging to the top of Big Ben while chewing on a bag of popcorn to store the fact that the population of Britain is 60 million.
The following population figures are easy to file away mentally once you have organised a site for each country:
| Country | Population | Personality | |
| Germany | 82 million | HB | Humphrey Bogart |
| UK | 60 million | SO | Scarlett O’Hara |
| France | 61 million | SA | Salvador Allende |
| Australia | 21 million | BA | Ben Affleck |
| Netherlands | 16 million | AS | Arnold Schwarzenegger |
| Austria | 8 million | OH | Oliver Hardy |
| South Africa | 44 million | DD | Donald Duck |
Use your own cast of personalities to represent the relevant numbers and don’t forget to create really way-out images to fix the data firmly in your mind.
CAPITALS
You may need to remember capital cities to link data to them or to discuss differences in urban and rural conditions in different nations. The way to make sure you never forget the correct capital for a country is to approach the task in the same way as learning a foreign vocabulary. The trick is to find a link between the country and its capital by forming an exaggerated and memorable key image.
The city of Kiev, for example, is the capital of Ukraine. I associate Kiev with chicken, as in the garlicky dish chicken Kiev, and Ukraine makes me think of a tall mechanical crane. So my key image is of a huge, smelly chicken dangling from a tall crane. Take a look at the following list and form your own crazy, memorable links. Remember to use humour, exaggeration, movement, sexuality and colour.
| Country | Capital |
| Switzerland | Berne |
| Belgium | Brussels |
| Afghanistan | Kabul |
| Nepal | Kathmandu |
| Romania | Bucharest |
| Philippines | Manila |
| North Korea | Pyongyang |
| South Korea | Seoul |
| New Zealand | Wellington |
| Grenada | St George’s |
| Cuba | Havana |
| Dominica | Roseau |
| Turkey | Ankara |
| Uruguay | Montevideo |
| Chile | Santiago |
| Indonesia | Jakarta |
| Singapore | Singapore |
| USA | Washington, DC |
| Bulgaria | Sofia |
Here are some suggestions, but your own creations will work best for you:
•Switzerland – Berne
Invent a new ritual for the Swiss. Imagine one of them standing on top of a mountain yodelling with one trouser leg rolled up exposing a bare knee.
•Afghanistan – Kabul
Imagine that all cabs in Afghanistan are driven by Afghan hounds. This should act sufficiently as a trigger, but you can always add a bull to the back of the cab to reinforce the link.
•North/South Korea – Pyongyang/Seoul
I’m sure Koreans both north and south of the border would be unimpressed by my associations, but this is how I avoid confusion between their capitals. I imagine walking into my local careers centre and noticing a dreadful pong hanging in the air, detected by my nose (north). The smell is coming from a southerly direction … the soles of my feet!
•New Zealand – Wellington
You should try to use the countries themselves as a backdrop for your key images. However, if you have no pictorial association with a particular country, use its shape from a map. For example, if you look at the shape of New Zealand, it’s like a Wellington boot held upside down.
•Grenada – St George’s
Picture the legend of St George and the dragon, only this time he is using a hand grenade to slay the beast.
•The United States
The method works just as well for remembering individual American states and their capitals. Imagine being told to tarmac the vast, flat terrain of Salt Lake City in Utah – in other words, you tar (Utah) Salt Lake City. Or perhaps the singer Lulu has suddenly been bestowed with a great honour in Hawaii – Honolulu being that state’s capital.
MEMORISING LISTS OF DATA
To store a list of information in order, such as the largest oceans or deserts, the longest rivers, highest mountains, and so on, use either the journey method or the link method. Here are the world’s largest oceans and seas:
1 Pacific Ocean
2 Atlantic Ocean
3 Indian Ocean
4 Arctic Ocean
5 Arabian Sea
6 South China Sea
7 Caribbean Sea
8 Mediterranean Sea
9 Bering Sea
10Bay of Bengal
To remember the order, I would form a short journey along a familiar coastal route divided into ten stages. Next, I would reduce the name of each ocean or sea to a key image. My father would represent the Pacific (Pa), an atlas the Atlantic, an Apache for Indian, and an iceberg would remind me of the Arctic Ocean. Lastly, I would anchor each key image at various stages along my coastal route, secure in the knowledge that the journey will preserve the correct order. Have a go with the rest of the list.
Statistics involving area, height, length and depth of the oceans and seas could all be accommodated by adding more images to the relevant locations. The masses of data to learn in geography are more than matched by the abundance of mental geography in which to store it. You will be able to memorise key data connected with whatever topic you are studying: development statistics, tectonic plate names, examples of climate variables, migration figures or demographic data such as countries’ GDPs, energy consumption figures or life expectancy.