Introduction
The School of Geography and Planning at Sun Yat-sen University was established in October, 2002, with a transition from the Department of Geography founded back in 1929. The department was one of the oldest geography departments in China. Since its establishment, the research and teaching in the School highlights field trips, laboratory analysis, computing modeling and international collaboration. It is, by now, the only pilot school in geography discipline in China under the ‘Promotion plan of Internationalization Demonstration Schools in Universities’ jointly approved by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs and the Ministry of Education.
Currently, the School of Geography and Planning offers four majors at the undergraduate level: physical geography and resource environment; human geography and urban planning; geographical information science; and urban planning (engineering). In addition, it offers two first-level discipline academic master’s programs in geography and in regional planning (engineering), one engineering master’s program in engineering of surveying and mapping, as well as one first-level discipline PhD program in geography. Moreover, the School is authorized as a Post-doctoral Research Station of geography. The School owns three province-level scientific research platforms: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Urbanization and Geo-simulation; Guangdong Provincial Engineering Research Center for Water Environment Remote Sensing Monitoring; and Guangdong Provincial Engineering Research Center for Public Security and Disaster. They are ranked among the top institutes nationwide in the research areas of human geography, spatial simulation and prediction, and etc.
