Organizations
How companies, institutions, and movements embody the sixteen values.
National Geographic Society
Curiosity about who lives here
National Geographic was founded to increase the diffusion of geographic knowledge, which in practice meant documenting the extraordinary diversity of human and natural life on earth and presenting it to a general audience with the rigor of science and the craft of photography. The yellow border is one of the most recognized symbols of curiosity about human identity in its full variety. The photographic archive is among the most significant documentary records of 20th-century human diversity in existence.
National Geographic Society
Curiosity about who lives here
National Geographic was founded to increase the diffusion of geographic knowledge, which in practice meant documenting the extraordinary diversity of human and natural life on earth and presenting it to a general audience with the rigor of science and the craft of photography. The yellow border is one of the most recognized symbols of curiosity about human identity in its full variety. The photographic archive is among the most significant documentary records of 20th-century human diversity in existence.
Photography and reporting introducing Americans to cultures and environments they would never otherwise encounter. The funding of expeditions producing genuine scientific knowledge. A visual style treating the subjects of its photography as worth looking at carefully and with respect.
An early 20th-century record reflecting the colonial framing of its era, presenting non-Western cultures as subjects of scientific curiosity rather than as subjects with perspectives on the encounter. A reckoning with that history that was slow to arrive and incomplete when it came.
The 1985 Afghan Girl photograph by Steve McCurry - a single unnamed human being becoming the most recognized face in the magazine's history, compressing identity, conflict, and witness into a single image.