Geography Basics examines the fundamentals of world geography. Its first volume addresses the question of what the study of geography is and then explores five basic fields: physical geography, biogeography and natural resources, human geography, economic geography, and political geography. The bulk of volume 2 is a glossary containing nearly 1,600 definitions of basic geography terms.

All the essays in Geography Basics are taken from the first volume of Salem's World Geography (2001), and its glossary and appendices are taken from the eighth volume of the same set. These are the materials that address the broadest aspects of geography: What the field is all about, how it is organised, what issues it addresses. Geography Basics thus answers the kinds of questions that are, in fact, most basic to the field.