Geography conferences are great opportunities for geographers, environmental scientists, GIS practitioners, social scientists—and basically anyone who performs work that is geographic in nature—to network and share recent developments in the field.

Many conferences accept all abstract submissions, so they are great opportunities for students to get experience and practice presenting their research. Even if you aren’t presenting, it is still very useful and interesting to attend conferences like the AAG annual meeting, which brings together more than 10,000 individuals. Below is a list of various national and regional geographic conferences still to come this year in the U.S.

The National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE), is hosting their annual meeting from July 31-August 3, in Memphis, Tennessee. NCGE is dedicated to expanding and improving geography education in U.S. schools and contributing to the development of highly qualified geography teachers. Attend the 2014 conference in Memphis to exchange ideas, research, resources, and best practices in geography education. For more info visit http://www.ncge.org/conference

For more than three decades, the Applied Geography Conferences have provided a forum for the exchange and critique of ideas related to the application of geographic concepts, analytical techniques, data, and methods. This year’s Applied Geography Conference is being held in Atlanta, Georgia, from October 15-17. The deadline for submitting abstracts and manuscripts has passed, but there is still time for students to submit work for the paper competition. A flyer for the conference can be found here: http://applied.geog.kent.edu/AGC_2014_flyer.pdf.

The American Association of Geographers (AAG) already held their annual meeting in Tampa, Florida, back in April, but there are numerous regional meetings occurring this fall throughout the country. Register early and visit http://www.aag.org/cs/calendar_of_events/aag_regional_meetings for links to the various meetings.

Esri held their annual user conference from July 14-18 at the San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California.  The Esri UC brings together social, economic, business, and environmental leaders covering the spectrum of geospatial applications. For more information, visit http://www.esri.com/events/user-conference.

Esri also has other GIS events going on throughout the end of this year in the U.S. and abroad, which can be found at http://www.esri.com/events.

For those in the Washington D.C. metro area, the group Geo DC holds monthly meetings and socials to discuss all things maps, GIS, cartography, OpenStreetMap, and anything in between. The group can be found at http://www.meetup.com/Geo-DC/, and on twitter @geo_dc.

OpenStreetMap is a worldwide group of volunteers that work on a free, open source, editable world map. Anyone can join and start mapping, and there are loads of opportunities to meet other members around the country and world. This page (http://openstreetmap.meetup.com/) is a compiled list of some of the largest groups the come together periodically, and there is also an annual conference in the U.S. This year’s was in April, but be on the lookout for next year!