Physical and human features: beach, cliff, town or port?: what children learn
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.
This game uses exactly the words listed in the National Curriculum. It asks whether a feature is physical or human, or which of four features belongs to a group. The key question for each word is: "Would it be there if people had never lived here?"
This topic covers a Key Stage 1 statutory requirement in the National Curriculum in England (Human and physical geography): pupils should be taught to “use basic geographical vocabulary to refer to: key physical features, including: beach, cliff, coast, forest, hill, mountain, sea, ocean, river, soil, valley, vegetation, season and weather key human features, including: city, town, village, factory, farm, house, office, port, harbour and shop”. The programme of study sets this for the whole of Key Stage 1, so schools choose when to teach it; we have placed this game in Year 2 (ages 6–7).
There is no direct equivalent in the US Common Core State Standards.
How to play
Answer 10 questions before the clock runs out. Tap an answer, or press 1 to 4. Each game has 10 multiple-choice questions and a 120-second timer. A wrong answer shows the correct one before moving on. You earn up to three stars depending on your score.
Step by step
- Ask the big question. Would this be here if no people had ever lived here? If yes, it is physical. If no, it is human.
- Think about who made it. Nature made rivers, cliffs and mountains. People built houses, shops and factories.
- Watch for the tricky ones. A farm is human because people made the fields and buildings. A harbour or port is human because people built it, even though it is beside the sea.
- Go from small to big. For human features, compare settlements: a village is small, a town is bigger and a city is bigger still.
- Use the words outside. On a walk, name what you see and say if it is physical or human.
Worked examples
Example 1: Is a harbour a physical feature or a human feature?
Working: A harbour is beside the sea, but people built its walls so boats can shelter.
Answer: A human feature.
Example 2: Which of these is a physical feature: shop, valley, factory or office?
Working: Shops, factories and offices are built by people. A valley is low land between hills, made by nature.
Answer: Valley.
Example 3: Is a forest a physical feature or a human feature?
Working: Forests grow naturally from trees and plants.
Answer: A physical feature.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
- 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.
- Calling a port physical because it is by the sea. The sea is physical, but the port next to it was built by people.
- Thinking only big things count. A single house is a human feature, just as a city is.
Activities to try at home
- On a walk, take turns to spot a physical feature and a human feature.
- Look at holiday photos and sort what you see into nature and people-made.
- Draw a picture map of your area and colour physical features green and human features red.
- Print the worksheet and ask your child to add one more feature to each group.
Ideas for the classroom
- Show aerial photos of the school area and ask pupils to label physical and human features.
- Sort picture cards into two hoops labelled physical and human.
- Compare a photo of a seaside town and a mountain valley: which has more human features?
- Play the game as a starter and ask pupils to justify one answer with "because people made it" or "because nature made it".
Free printable game and worksheet
The free printable starts with a game sheet, such as a colour-by-answer picture, an answer maze or a secret-code joke, followed by a worksheet. Both use the same checked questions as the online game, and the answers are on the last page. Print it, or save it as a PDF from your browser’s print menu.
Open the free printable game and worksheet
Frequently asked questions
Why are soil, vegetation, season and weather not in the game?
The curriculum lists them with the physical vocabulary, but they are not features you can point to on a map, so the game keeps to landforms, water and places. They are great to talk about on a walk.
What about a park or a reservoir?
These are mixtures: people planned or built them using nature. The game uses only the words in the National Curriculum lists, where every answer is clear.
Where do these words come up again?
In Key Stage 2, children study physical geography (rivers, mountains, volcanoes) and human geography (settlements and land use) in much more depth.