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 The National Geographic Society, headquartered
in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the world's
largest not-for-profit educational and scientific organizations.
Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural
science, the promotion of environmental and historical
conservation, and the study of world culture and history.
Its historical mission is "to increase and diffuse geographic
knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's
cultural, historical, and natural resources." Its President and
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, and
conservationists. The organization sponsors and funds scientific
research and exploration.
The Society publishes an official
journal, National Geographic Magazine, and other magazines,
books, school products, maps, other publications, web and film
products in numerous languages and countries around the world.
It also has an educational foundation that gives grants to
education organizations and individuals to enhance geography
education. Its Committee for Research and Exploration has given
grants for scientific research for most of the Society's history
and has recently awarded its 9,000th grant for scientific
research, conducted worldwide and 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,
and has helped to sponsor such popular traveling exhibits such
as the "King Tut" exhibit featuring magnificent artifacts from
the tomb of the young Egyptian Pharaoh, which toured in several
American cities, ending its U.S. showing at the Franklin
Institute in Philadelphia.
History
The National Geographic Society was founded in Washington, D.C.
on January 27, 1888, by 33 explorers and scientists who were
interested in "organizing a society for the increase and
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 and 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 and
served the organization for fifty-five years, and members of the
Grosvenor family have played important roles in the organization
since.
Bell and his son-in-law, Grosvenor, devised the
successful marketing notion of Society membership and 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 and Humanity in October 2006 in Oviedo,
Spain.
Publications
National Geographic Magazine
Main article: National Geographic Magazine
Cover of January, 1915 National Geographic
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 and photography of places
and things all over the world and universe. The National
Geographic magazine is currently published in 31 language
editions in many countries around the world. Combined English
and other language circulation is nearly nine million monthly
with more than fifty million readers monthly.
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