National Geographics Pictures

Near Farah, Afghanistan |1948 |Ernesto Cagnacci

"Men perform the attan in a village near Farah, in southwestern Afghanistan. This traditional Pashtun folk dance, a staple entertainment at weddings, is accompanied by the ever faster beating of drums. Participants—including, occasionally, women—spin for hours on end, until exhausted.



Barcelona , Spain |1998 |David Alan Harvey
Grand boulevards such as Passeig de Gràcia radiate from the center city. Most were laid out in the 1800s when Barcelona expanded beyond its medieval core. Spain's second largest city after Madrid and home to 1.6 million people, Barcelona cleaned up to host the 1992 Olympic Games, adding plazas, gardens, and sculpture and restoring its long-neglected seafront."


Daytona Beach, Florida |1957 | J. Baylor Roberts
Unlike most Florida resort communities, Daytona Beach attracts more visitors in summer than in winter. Daytona bills itself as the world's speed center. The 23-mile [37-kilometer] strip of sand, so hard that cars can drive safely at surf's edge, has witnessed many automobile speed tests


Matrah , Oman |1993 |James L. Stanfield
Glittering crescent on the Gulf of Oman, Matrah beckons west of Muscat, the capital


Algiers, Algeria |1972 | Thomas J. Abercrombie
'Algiers, the white,' Algerians call their capital, here awakening under a pale winter sun.


Sabah , Malaysia |1997 |Stuart Franklin
"Spindly legs keep makeshift houses—and the day's harvest of seaweed—high, dry, and clear of the rising tide off the coast of Semporna in eastern Sabah.

The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the world's largest not-for-profit educational and scientific organizations. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history.

Its historical mission is "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural, historical, and natural resources."Its President and CEO since March 1998, John M. Fahey, Jr., says National Geographic's purpose is to inspire people to care about their planet. The Society is governed by a twenty-three member Board of Trustees composed of a group of distinguished educators, businesspeople, scientists, former governmental officials, and conservationists. The organization sponsors and funds scientific research and exploration. The Society publishes an official journal, National Geographic Magazine, and other magazines, books, school products, maps, other publications, web and film products in numerous languages and countries around the world. It also has an educational foundation that gives grants to education organizations and individuals to enhance geography education. Its Committee for Research and Exploration has given grants for scientific research for most of the Society's history and has recently awarded its 9,000th grant for scientific research, conducted worldwide and often reported on by its media properties. Its various media properties reach about 360 million people around the world monthly.National Geographic maintains a museum free for the public in its Washington, D.C. headquarters, and has helped to sponsor such popular traveling exhibits such as the "King Tut" exhibit featuring magnificent artifacts from the tomb of the young Egyptian Pharaoh, and currently touring in several American cities, presently in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute.