"We catch a glimpse of a huge swirl of clouds out the window over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or the boot of Italy jutting down into the Mediterranean, or the brilliant blue coral reefs of the Caribbean strutting their beauty before the stars. And...we experienced those uniquely human qualities: awe, curiosity, wonder, joy, amazement." (Russell L. Schweickart, Apollo Astronaut ("The Home Planet")
Metadata: GEON Field |
The GEON (geographic name) field usually represents the country, or for some large countries, country and state or province. However, when there are large discontinuous regions within political boundaries, we use other geographical categories. For Example, Easter Island (Isla de Pascua) is part of the territory of Chile, however, because it is far from the boundaries of the mainland of Chile, we have created a separate GEON for Easter Island. Our field lists "Geographic Region, Country or U.S. State" and discontinuous regions are not lumped with their political ownership. Also note that although we are aware of the many political changes going on each day, images are cataloged at a point in time. Current political boundaries and names may not be reflected in all the database records for some locations. |
