People and landscapes
Year 2 · Geography
Explore places, read maps and discover the world around you.
Choose a game
Take your time, try a game and collect stars.
Physical and human features: beach, cliff, town or port?
Is a harbour a physical or human feature? Is a forest? A free KS1 geography game using the National Curriculum word lists, with a printable.
Play Physical and human features: beach, cliff, town or port?
Learning about people and landscapes
In this Year 2 geography collection, you can practise Physical and human features: beach, cliff, town or port?. Choose a game above for a short activity, or explore the examples below before you play. The full guide for each game explains its controls, gives more examples and includes a free printable for practice away from the screen.
Talk it through
Keep a globe, atlas or simple map nearby. Ask your child to point to a place or direction before naming it. Relate a map symbol or feature to a real example, and compare places rather than memorising isolated names.
Ask: “Where would you look to check your answer?” Give your child time to explain. Return to an example after playing and ask whether they would approach it differently.
Physical and human features: beach, cliff, town or port?
Geographers sort the things they see into two big groups. Physical features are part of nature: beaches, cliffs, hills, mountains, rivers, valleys, forests, seas and oceans. Human features are made or built by people: houses, shops, offices, factories, farms, ports, harbours, villages, towns and cities. In Key Stage 1, children learn this vocabulary and use it to describe places they know and places they study.
Try an example: Is a harbour a physical feature or a human feature?
A harbour is beside the sea, but people built its walls so boats can shelter.
Show the answer
A human feature.
What to look out for
Thinking a farm is physical because it is in the countryside. Talk about who made the fields, hedges, fences and barns. People did, so a farm is human.
Read the full Physical and human features: beach, cliff, town or port? guide
Practise away from the screen
- On a walk, take turns to spot a physical feature and a human feature.
Curriculum connections
These games support selected practice connected to Human and physical geography in the National Curriculum in England. The programme groups requirements by key stage; the year shown here is our suggested practice placement. A game covers selected examples, rather than assessing every requirement.
Questions families ask
Where should we start with people and landscapes?
Start with Physical and human features: beach, cliff, town or port?. Look at the worked example together, then try a round. If the task feels unfamiliar, use the full game guide or its free printable before trying again.
Does this cover everything taught at this level?
No. This collection brings together the games currently available for this learning area. It supports selected skills and does not replace the full programme of study or practical teaching.