Your choice of subject for your Extended Essay will affect how your whole research process goes. Since Geography links actual locations, actual people, and facts, I think it’s one of the most fulfilling subjects to write about. By the way, the Geography Extended Essay subject is one of the most popular options among IB students.
As an IB tutor, I want to share what I’ve learned to help students better understand what the IB wants from a good Geography EE. A good topic will become a great academic study with a clear focus, a strong methodology, and a research question grounded in Geography. So let’s break it down.
- What Is an Extended Essay in Geography?
- What Geography Extended Essay Topics Can You Choose?
- What Are the Assessment Criteria for Geography EE?
- Need Help with Your IB Extended Essay?
- Is Geography a Hard Subject for an Extended Essay?
- Who Should Choose Geography as an Extended Essay Subject?
- How Our Extended Essay Writers Can Help?
- Conclusion
What Is an Extended Essay in Geography?
An Extended Essay in Geography is basically your chance to run a real investigation, the way geographers do it in real life. It’s one of the most hands-on EE subjects. That’s all because you get to work with actual places, real data, and patterns you can measure and explain.
In the IB’s official guidelines, the EE is described as an independent research project where you choose a specific topic and answer a clear question using proper academic methods. The Geography subject brief also reminds students that it’s a formal piece of writing that’s externally assessed. That’s why your analysis and structure matter just as much as the topic you choose.
Your main task is to study how people, places, and environmental events interact. Geography is all about trends in the real world and how people and places are connected, according to the subject guide. You shouldn’t just skim over a topic in your essay. Instead, you need to look at what’s happening, including trends, changes, patterns, and effects, and figure out how it all relates to the things you learn about Geography in class.
Here’s an easy approach to figure out what the Geography EE requires.
| Focused Topic | A narrow geographic issue tied to one place or region |
| Research Question | Clear, measurable, and answerable through geographic methods |
| Methods | Fieldwork, mapping, data analysis, spatial interpretation |
| Theory | Concepts from human, physical, or environmental geography |
Since the EE has a 4,000-word limit, your topic needs to be sharp and manageable. In my experience, the strongest Geography essays always include some real fieldwork, such as surveys, counts, soil checks, land-use notes, or basic microclimate measurements. And of course, a deep data analysis.
What Geography Extended Essay Topics Can You Choose?
A Geography Extended Essay gives you a vast range of topic choices, but the best ones usually come from places you can actually study. In my experience, the strongest topics are focused, tied to a specific location, and based on something you can measure, map, or observe. Because Geography is between human and physical sciences, your topic can lean toward cities, people, or natural processes. But as long as there’s a clear spatial element.
Before choosing anything, think about what data you can realistically collect. If you can visit the area, talk to people, count, map, or measure something, that topic already has potential. A topic backed by factual evidence almost always leads to a better essay than one based only on secondary research.
These are some topic directions that usually work well:
- Urban growth, housing, and city patterns
- Tourism pressure and its effects
- Local climate variations or microclimates
- Coastal processes and erosion
- River changes and stream characteristics
- Air or noise pollution differences across an area
- Transport accessibility and movement patterns
- Land-use changes over time
Each of these can be tailored to a specific place, which is exactly what IB examiners like to see. A topic becomes even stronger when you attach it to a question you can test.
If you want more ready-to-use ideas, I’ve put together a separate list of Geography EE topic examples.
What Are the Assessment Criteria for Geography EE?
The assessment criteria for a Geography Extended Essay are actually pretty straightforward once you understand what the IB is looking for. From my experience, examiners like focused papers, supported by real evidence.
The criteria come from the general Extended Essay framework. But Geography has its own expectations because it’s a subject rooted in spatial patterns and real-world processes. Below are the criteria for the 2027 assessment.
- Framework for your essay
What’s the first thing examiners look at? Well, it’s whether your essay has a solid foundation. They just want to see a meaningful research question and methods that actually fit your topic. And a structure that makes sense.
If the question is too wide or the approach feels mismatched, it shows immediately.
- Knowledge and understanding
IB examiners also check how well you understand the geography behind your topic. At this point, using the right concepts, vocabulary, and theories makes a big difference. In my experience, essays that stay vague or overly general usually lose ground here.
- Analysis and line of argument
Your analysis is another major part of the grade. Examiners expect you to interpret your data correctly, point out patterns, and explain what those patterns mean in a geographic context.
- Discussion and evaluation
After that comes the discussion, which is where you show how solid your results are and why they’re essential.
Remember, talking about problems, like bad weather, a small sample size, or measures that aren’t perfect, shows growth, not weakness.
- Reflection
Finally, there’s reflection. It’s simply about showing what you learned from the process and how your thinking changed along the way. And I can confidently say that genuine reflection always reads better than overly polished writing.
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Is Geography a Hard Subject for an Extended Essay?
Whether Geography is a hard subject for an Extended Essay really depends on the type of student you are. From my experience, this subject isn’t tricky in the “theory-heavy” sense. But at the same time, it requires your dedication. Also, the main challenge usually comes from the practical side. When conducting research, you’ll need to collect data, work with maps, analyse patterns, and apply concepts correctly. Don’t forget about charts and tables!
For those who enjoy hands-on work and understanding how real places function, Geography often feels easier than many other EE subjects.
What makes the subject manageable is the structure. You’re dealing with real-world locations, measurable variables, and concepts you already use in your HL or SL Geography classes. Because of that, most students find it easier to stay on track and avoid getting lost in abstract ideas.
However, there’s one thing you can’t skip: fieldwork or original data. If you’re not willing to go outside, observe, measure, or interview people, the essay becomes harder. Geography examiners expect evidence you gathered yourself, not just secondary sources.
Overall, I wouldn’t call Geography hard. I’d call it demanding in a practical, methodical way. If you enjoy solving real problems and working with place-specific data, it’s actually one of the easiest EE subjects you can choose.
Who Should Choose Geography as an Extended Essay Subject?
Choosing Geography as your Extended Essay subject makes a lot of sense if you’re already thinking about how this work connects to your future studies or career. It’s one of the most flexible subjects when it comes to university options, because it sits right between the social sciences and natural sciences. That gives you a wider range of degrees to apply for compared to many other EE subjects.
Universities appreciate Geography because it demonstrates that you can research independently, analyse real data, and understand spatial patterns (skills valuable in many fields).
It’s self-evident, but students who choose Geography for their EE often continue into university programs such as Environmental Science, Architecture, Human Geography, Global Studies, or Geology.
It’s also a great choice for anyone who prefers practical work over purely theoretical writing. Geography gives you space to observe, measure, compare, and test ideas instead of relying only on books and articles.
So if you want an EE subject that actually supports your long-term goals, Geography is a brilliant choice.
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Conclusion
Selecting geography for your extended essay allows you to research a topic that is anchored in real data. Because you’re dealing with locations, patterns, and processes that you can see and quantify, it’s one of the most interesting subjects, in my opinion.
Remember that things go much more smoothly when the topic is clear and the research question is well-defined. This focus helps keep your paper on point and saves you a lot of stress later on.
