About Journal of Geographical Sciences

Journal of Geographical Sciences

The Journal of Geographical Sciences (JGS) is an international English-language academic journal founded in 1990 in Beijing, co-sponsored by the Geographical Society of China and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and published by Science Press and Springer. Formerly associated with the title Journal of Chinese Geography, it has been published monthly since 2015 and has been indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded since 2007. It publishes high-level papers on physical geography, natural resources, environmental sciences, geographic information systems, remote sensing and cartography, and on the spatial patterns, global change and resource management of China and the wider world. Its print ISSN is 1009-637X and its electronic ISSN 1861-9568, and it is cited by the abbreviation J. Geogr. Sci.

JGS is the Beijing half of China's pair of English-language geography flagships. Where Chinese Geographical Science is sponsored by the academy's Changchun institute, JGS is sponsored jointly by the national geographical society and the academy's Beijing geography institute — the combination that makes it, institutionally, the most central geography journal in China.

Sponsors and Editorial Home

JGS is co-sponsored by the Geographical Society of China, the national learned society for geography, and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing. It is governed, in the Chinese publishing system, by the China Association for Science and Technology. The combination is significant: the society gives the journal its national disciplinary constituency, while IGSNRR — the academy's principal institute for geography and natural resources, based in Beijing — provides its research base and editorial home.

The society–institute partnership distinguishes JGS from a purely institutional journal. It is the journal of China's geographers as a profession, not only of one institute, and its pages accordingly carry work from across the country's universities and institutes, as well as international contributions.

Founding and History

The journal was founded in 1990 — its Chinese directory entries give the founding year as 1990 and its domestic serial number as CN 11-4546/P — and was previously known as the Journal of Chinese Geography, a name that itself records the journal's origin as a window on Chinese geography for the world. It was selected or indexed by SCI, Scopus and other services as it developed; it has been indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded since 2007, and its Journal Citation Reports record has been issued since 2009. In 2015 it moved to monthly publication, twelve issues a year, a change that marked its growth to a large-volume journal of the field.

The trajectory from a 1990 founding to SCIE indexing by 2007 and monthly publication by 2015 mirrors the expansion of Chinese geography itself during the reform era: a discipline that grew with the country's need to understand and manage its territory — its land, water, cities and climate — and that built, through JGS, a high-level English-language outlet for that work.

Aims and Scope

The journal's aims, as stated in its own materials, are to report the latest research results and development in geography and its branch subjects; to provide an international forum for discussion of subjects and exchange of viewpoints related to environmental and developmental issues; and to promote academic understanding and communication between China and other countries. It publishes papers on various theoretical and applied aspects of physical and human geography in China, with topics including academic findings and research results; applied theory closely linked to economic development; applications of environmental remote sensing and GIS to geography; systematic studies of the human–land relationship; dynamics of vital issues of sustainable development and change; and comparative studies of similar regions in China with elsewhere in the world.

Springer's statement of the journal's coverage lists physical geography, natural resources, environmental sciences, geographic information and remote sensing and cartography, and a 2025 study of the journal adds its core territory: physical processes and spatial patterns of the Earth's surface, geographical elements and their interaction, global change and its regional response, characterisation and management of natural resources, landscape ecology and environmental construction, remote sensing, geographic information systems and their applications in geographical research. Articles concerning coordination and optimisation of resources, environment, population and development, viewed from national and different spatial dimensions, are particularly welcome.

Article Types and Peer Review

JGS publishes full-length articles and research papers, review articles, short communications, editorials and short reviews, twelve issues a year, and all papers are refereed before publication. The monthly cadence and the mix of research and review formats make it a working journal of record for the field: new results appear continuously, and review articles periodically synthesise them. Its subject scope — from physical processes to human–environment interaction — gives the journal the generalist character of a national flagship, rather than the narrower remit of a specialist title.

The journal's standing in citation terms is documented in its own publisher materials: a Journal Citation Reports impact factor of 4.3 for 2024, ranking ninth of sixty-five journals in physical geography (Q1), as reported in a Springer call for papers for the journal. That figure, a snapshot of one citation year, is best read alongside the journal's long SCIE record since 2007: the journal has sustained high citation performance over nearly two decades, not in a single year alone.

Indexing and Standing

JGS is indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (since 2007), Scopus, and other services including the Chinese Science Citation Database, and is classified in the first quartile in Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) in recent Scopus-based rankings. Its domestic serial identifiers, print ISSN 1009-637X and electronic ISSN 1861-9568, and its Beijing publication place (recorded as Beijing in its Chinese directory entries) place it at the institutional centre of Chinese geography.

Among China's geography journals, its combination of attributes — national society sponsorship, academy institute sponsorship, SCIE indexing since 2007, monthly publication, Q1 citation standing — makes it the senior English-language journal of Chinese geography, and the natural first destination for high-level geographical research from China intended for the international literature.

Readership and Community

The journal's readers are geographers worldwide, and the researchers and planners who use geographical science in China: physical geographers studying landforms, climate and hydrology; resource scientists; environmental scientists; GIS and remote-sensing specialists; and human geographers and development researchers concerned with land use, urbanisation, sustainability and regional change. Its explicit welcome for comparative studies of Chinese regions with regions elsewhere in the world makes it a bridge journal: work from China that speaks to geographical problems in general, and work from elsewhere that illuminates China.

For geographers outside China, JGS is one of the principal sources for peer-reviewed, English-language research on the geography of China — a country whose scale, pace of change and environmental diversity make its geography globally consequential. For Chinese geographers, it is the high-prestige domestic-edited journal of their discipline.

Place in Chinese Geography Publishing

China's geography publishing has a clear structure: the Geographical Society of China and the academy institutes publish the Chinese-language journals of the discipline, the Changchun institute publishes Chinese Geographical Science in English, and the society and the Beijing institute together publish the Journal of Geographical Sciences in English. Within that structure, JGS holds the central English-language position, reflecting its dual sponsorship and its society base.

Its history also illustrates the internationalisation of Chinese science publishing: founded in 1990 as a journal presenting Chinese geography in English, indexed in SCIE by 2007, monthly by 2015, and now carrying a Q1 impact-factor standing — a trajectory from national showcase to internationally ranked general journal.

Access and Identification

JGS is published through SpringerLink and Science Press, where its archive and calls for papers are maintained. It is identified by ISSN 1009-637X (print) and 1861-9568 (electronic), and cited by the abbreviation J. Geogr. Sci. Its earlier title, Journal of Chinese Geography, appears in its bibliographic history.

Founded in 1990 in Beijing, co-sponsored by the Geographical Society of China and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, and published monthly by Science Press and Springer, the Journal of Geographical Sciences remains China's senior English-language geography journal — a forum for physical and human geography, natural resources and geographic information science, for research on the spatial patterns and global change of China and the world.