News

Greetings Geographers, Parents, and Friends of IGC! From high above the Arabian Sea en route from Bangkok to Dubai (doing some research for our Travel and Tourism Exam...) and then onwards to Vienna for more planning, here's your next IGC update email! There's a lot to digest here, so please read through everything carefully, including last month's update email (especially if you have registered in the meantime). We'll have another update ready for you around April 20-25, but as always, please contact me if you have any questions at any point. [...]

Greetings Geographers and Family and Friends! We have just departed from Vienna after the most recent planning trip, and are very much looking forward to welcoming you all here this coming summer! With IGC 2024 now less than 5 months out, we wanted to check in with an update on several important matters. Please read through this email carefully, there are lots of important details here. As always, please continue to direct all IGC related questions to me directly at this email account. For reference, this email has now [...]

A list of suggested hotels for the 2024 is now available here. Note that any hotel that is within a 5 minute walk to any stop along the U6 subway (U-Bahn) line between Thaliastraße and Siebenhirten, or within a 5 minute walk to any stop along the U4 subway (U-Bahn) line between Hietzing and Pilgramgasse can work well too. If you are looking to stay closer to the city center, then we recommend a hotel close to Karlsplatz, Stadtpark, or Landstraße. These are all stops on the U4 slightly [...]

We are pleased to announce that GRG 23-Alterlaa has been selected as the host school for the 2024 International Geography Championships! GRG 23-Alterlaa is an Austrian public high school in the 23rd District of Vienna, and is a three-minute walk from the Alterlaa station on the U6 subway (i.e. Metro / U-Bahn) line; the location is here on a map. Families who are looking to book hotels should look anywhere that is within a 5 minute walk from any U6 subway stop between Burggasse-Stadthalle and Siebenhirten, or along the [...]

Happy Holidays from International Academic Competitions! We've just spent several weeks in Vienna doing some advance planning for next summer, and we're delighted to present the Draft Schedule of the 2024 International Geography Championships! There are 30 different medal events and nearly 20 different field trip destinations in Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest! Descriptions are now online for all of the buzzer quiz tournaments, exams, other medal events, field trips, and the optional day trip to Budapest. Registration will open by December 10; we will send out an announcement to [...]

International Academic Competitions is delighted to announce a new expansion of our programs. Branching out from our usual academic competitions, we will be offering a full week-long tour of Central Europe from Vienna to Berlin from July 21-27! Stops will include the Wachau Valley, Český Krumlov, Prague, Dresden, and Berlin on a tour designed specifically for families of children age 9-17 with an interest in geography, history, and culture. Details are available on the website here, which will be updated continually throughout the coming months. Of course, with this [...]

Vienna's famous Ferris Wheel overlooks the Prater amusement park. International Academic Competitions is delighted to announce that the 2024 International Geography Championships will be held in Vienna, Austria from July 13-20! This will be the first world championship level event that IAC has organized in what has routinely been called the world's most livable city, and which is an outstanding nexus of culture and history in a spectacular geographic setting at the far eastern end of the Alps along the Danube River. Please explore this website for [...]

One by one, different students went up onto the stage, either by themselves or with their team, with the final medals and prizes being awarded. Many different flags were waved and different state anthems played. The final ten questions were starting, with the five students from elementary on stage. As each question was being asked, scores were changing by the second. Finally, the scores came in with the rankings in the individual buzzer rounds being finished. In between the different divisions, other awards were given, with anticipation still in [...]

The day was Thursday July 7th 2022, and was not the usual day at Vermont for most International Geography Bee contestants. Almost everyone contestants, parents and the IAC organizers, were going to either Montreal, Canada or Fort Ticonderoga/Lake Placid, NY. Both were very exciting places to visit with a lot of information and history behind them. In the morning, we started around 8:45 AM as planned for the 90 minute bus ride to Fort Ticonderoga. On the way we crossed over to the state of New York. When we [...]

Montreal is one of the most important and influential cities not only in Canada but in the Americas as well.  So naturally this was a trip that most of us were looking forward to. After several days of competitions this trip was a welcome trip to let the competitors have a break and explore a new city. After an almost 2 hour drive the buses made it to Montreal. As the buses drove on the bridge to the island of Montreal we got to see picturesque views of the [...]

The Russo-Ukraine war was a highly chosen topic because many students had prior knowledge about the topic in the news. In total, there were 69 contestants from all three divisions compared to the average of ~37.4 students per 3 task forces, or 23 students per division compared to the average of ~12.5 students per round. There were also subtopics that we had to write about specifically, which was one thing we were graded about. The 5 subtopics were: Food production, exports, and the coming global food security crisis Impact [...]

As the teams were assigned, many were happy to find out who they were competing with. The teams were determined based on how they did in the individual buzzer rounds. Having scored higher, you were placed onto a higher ranking team such, or having scored lower, you were placed onto a lower-ranked team. Had there been a smaller number of children in a region, there would be only one team of two or three competitors.  On Tuesday, July 5th 2022, the first three rounds were played by every single [...]

And, the topic of the Blitz is…  The geography of the Comoros!  People erupted with cheers and boos on two sides, the excitement, and the disappointment. We were told to quiet down with the noise and went straight into the resources. 30 minutes on the clock were ticking with pages rustling, children chatting quietly, and staff members telling students to be quiet.  Soon, the 30 minutes are up. Everyone frazzled, we all put our resources away, hoping for the best. They bring us the test, 15 questions in 10 [...]

At IGC most events are academically focused competitions. All that time spent studying and participating in competitions can make us miss the outdoors. Therefore some competitors decided to go out and about in nature, namely to Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont which measures precisely 4,395 feet. The hikers were split into 2 groups, the all day group which left earlier in the morning and had been hiking from the morning and the half day group which arrived at the mountain later and hiked until the late afternoon. [...]

You might have heard of it because of the name dispute, prior knowledge or only because there was a chance to win a free trip to it at IGC. You also might not have heard about it. But regardless of whether you knew about it or not, North Macedonia is a destination worth being on any traveler's bucket list. Hidden within the Balkans it has a wealth of history, culture and landscapes packed into a country smaller than the US state of Massachuttes. From ancient ruins from former empires [...]

At the IGC  winning a medal showcases knowledge and skill in a geographical area. Winning a medal is an award that most, if not all attendees at IGC are hoping to achieve. One medal is already an accomplishment, but what about 5? Well that's what Aadi Gadekar, a rising junior from New Jersey, managed to achieve this July 4th. He scored a gold in geoguessr, the battery exam, knockout, and the historical geography bee. Additionally he won a bronze in the human geography exam. Winning all those events wasn’t [...]

Yes, the 2022 International Geography Championships have commenced, and as stated, these are just like the Olympics, but in geography. With students from all across the world, this is sure to be an event they will remember for a lifetime. As the flag parade started, all of the states’ and countries’ anthems played. The names of the competitors were announced, one by one. The flags were held by people from respective locations, marching on and off the stage. Many hands hurt with all the clapping. Now, let the games begin! [...]