Australian Geographic store in Melbourne Emporium 2017

Australian Geographic is a media business that produces the ''Australian Geographic'' magazine, ''DMag'' magazine, specialist book titles, travel guides, diaries and calendars and online media. It published editions of the

Australian Encyclopaedia The ''Australian Encyclopaedia'' is an encyclopedia focused on Australia. In addition to biographies of notable Australians the coverage includes the geology, flora, fauna as well as the history of the continent. It was first published by Angus ...

. It previously operated the Australian Geographic retail chain stores and Australian Geographic Travel and Australian Geographic Adventures. ''Australian Geographic'' magazine, originally titled ''Dick Smith's Australian Geographic'', is a bi-monthly geographical journal created by Dick Smith in 1986. The magazine focuses mainly on stories about Australia, or about Australian people in other countries. The six editions published each year are available by subscription and on newsstands. They include

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text ...

s or sheet maps in each edition, as well as photographs and detailed technical illustrations. Australian Geographic also has a website that includes the entire magazine digital archive. Each year, a portion of the profits is provided to the Australian Geographic Society.

History

The ''Australian Geographic'' magazine, originally titled ''Dick Smith's Australian Geographic'', was initially published by Australian Geographic Pty Ltd, a private company controlled by Dick Smith, the founder of

Dick Smith Electronics Dick Smith Holdings Limited (formerly Dick Smith, Dick Smith Electronics or DSE) was an Australian chain of retail stores that sold consumer electronics goods, hobbyist electronic components, and electronic project kits. The chain expanded succ ...

and

Dick Smith Foods Dick Smith Foods was a food brand created by Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith to provide Australian owned and produced alternatives to products from foreign-owned food companies. Generally, the brand focused on producing local alternatives to ...

. His name was removed from the title two years later. Australian Geographic Pty Ltd also operated the Australian Geographic chain of retail stores. The publication's offices were originally based in Terrey Hills north of Sydney. Smith wanted the publication to focus on accuracy by exclusively including articles that were peer-reviewed. Australian Geographic acquired rights to the ''

'' and published editions in 1988 and 1996. In 1995, when subscriptions totalled more than 200,000, Smith sold the business to

Fairfax Media Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased '' The Sydney Morning Hera ...

for A$41 million. In December 1998, the business was bought out by its management. From September 2000 to December 2001, ''Australian Geographic'' published a bimonthly science and technology magazine known as ''Newton Graphic Science''. There were, however, only eight issues published before the magazine went permanently out of print. In November 2006, PBL Media's ACP Magazines (now

Bauer Media Group Heinrich Bauer Publishing (german: Heinrich Bauer Verlag KG), trading as Bauer Media Group, is a German multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Hamburg. It operates worldwide and owns more than 600 magazines, over 400 digital products and 50 r ...

) purchased the Australian Geographic publishing division. The ''Australian Geographic'' magazine was then based at Park Street, Sydney. The editor-in-chief of ''Australian Geographic'' was Chrissie Goldrick, while the editor was John Pickrell. In September 2007, Australian Geographic Retail, which operates an online store and retail stores selling products including

Australiana Australiana includes the items, people, places, flora, fauna and events of Australian origins. Anything pertaining to Australian culture, society, geography and ecology can fall under the term Australiana, especially if it is endemic to Austra ...

, weather stations,

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to obse ...

s, books and toys, was sold separate to the publication business. From 2007 to 2016 Australian Geographic Retail was owned by Myer Family Investments but after large operating losses it was sold in August 2016 to The Co-op, a retail supplier to universities. The license ended in 2019. In 2018, the publication was sold to Sydney-based Northern Pictures, a television production company owned by Blue Ant Media.

Awards

The Australian Geographic Society Adventure Award has been awarded since 1987 and is Australia's longest-running award for adventure. It is judged on merit and therefore not all of the categories are awarded annually. The award ceremony, attended in 2018 by the

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are r ...

and Duchess of Sussex, is a celebration of achievement and is not a competition. The award is given in two categories – Adventurer of the Year, and Young Adventurer of the Year.

Adventurer of the Year

Young Adventurer of the Year

References

* ''Australian Geographic'' 10th Anniversary Collectors Edition No. 40 Oct – Dec 1995

External links