A voluntary, not-for-profit organisation for advancing geographical science and promoting public awareness and enjoyment of Geography and related topics.
Advance public awareness of, and interest in, geography and related disciplines, including environmental issues
Encourage research and scholarship in geography
Recognise and reward achievements in geography
Commemorate past achievements of significance to geography
The Society is custodian of an extensive library of antique, rare and current books and maps. Many are featured in our Treasures. Amongst its various activities the Society organises lectures on topical issues, publishes a scholarly journal, recognises contributions to geography through an active awards program, and convenes an active field activities program.
The RGSSA welcomes professional geographers, geography graduates, and all those with an enthusiasm for geography, travel and exploration to join.
Experience. Geography. Together.TM
The RGSSA Library contains over 25,000 volumes and is one of the most significant collections of rare geographical books and manuscripts in Australia.
The Society supports a number of awards and prizes to promote geographical education and research, and to recognise members’ efforts.
20 March 2025
14 November 2024
22 July 2024
10 April 2025 | 5:30 pm
Monthly Lecture
Understanding your elevation is integral to many decision-making processes; from determining a safe development threshold to avoid flood risk, for monitoring sea-levels, through to making sure sewers flow downhill as designed. But have you ever wondered how a vertical datum is defined and how you then establish this for a country that is also a continent?
8 May 2025 | 5:30 pm
Monthly Lecture
Come and be inspired by Sophie who believes that aside from the obvious environmental benefits, gardening improves our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing as well as that of the broader community.
29 May 2025 | 10:30 am
Rare Books Group
The talk will cover topics including the Coronation of Charles II, the Black Plague and the Great Fire of London.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
12 June 2025 | 12:00 pm
Lunchtime Meeting
Rose de Freycinet’s Journal covered a three-year circumnavigation around the World from 1817 to 1820, including a shipwreck.
Is it more enriching for the Anglophone reader to hear the woman traveller’s own voice, albeit in translation, than to take cognizance of Rose’s adventures in a third-person narrative, as told by several scholars?
Professor Rivière is a recipient of an RGSSA Library Research Fellowship.
Image from Rose de Freycinet - Wikipedia
16 June 2025 | 12:30 pm
Lunchtime Meeting
This lecture traces strands of the environmental history(ies) of the Black Swan – particularly its long disruption of settler-colonial imaginaries of possibility – to open up what ‘black swan’ events and disruptions might yet be crafted for our shared uncertain climatic and ecological futures.
Melinda is the recipient of an RGSSA Library Fellowship.
19 June 2025 | 5:30 pm
Monthly Lecture
Skye worked with Prof Rob Foster and a large number of contributors to develop "The South Australian Frontier and its Legacies' map which details encounters between settler colonies and First Nations peoples.
Image from David Collin's account of the colony of NSW, 1798
26 June 2025 | 10:30 am
Rare Books Group
For over 4,000 years these islands provided a valuable source of spices to the world.
16 October 2025 | 6:00 pm
Events
The RGSSA is a voluntary, not-for profit organisation for advancing geographical science and promoting public awareness and enjoyment of Geography and related topics. This year marks its 140th anniversary which will be celebrated with an event to remember!
© The Royal Geographical Society of South Australia