The School of Geography and Ocean Science (SGOS) of Nanjing University, founded in 1921 by Professor Kezhen Zhu, has a reputation for "the cradle of geographers." Many famous geographers, such as Professor Kezhen Zhu, Professor Huanyong Hu, Professor Qiyun Zhang, Professor Xudan Li, Professor Meie Ren and Professor Huairen Yang, had been teaching in this department and had cultivated a group of high-quality talents, including academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and/or Chinese Academy of Engineering, academician of the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the National Science and Technology Leading Talents, professors of the Changjiang Scholars Program, winners of National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars and Distinguished University Teachers as well as senior engineers and managers in government, enterprises and companies. The SGOS has played a distinct role in domestic and foreign academic cycles through Professor Zhu Kezhen’s research on monsoon climate, Professor Hu Huanyong’s proposition on the population density boundary line (known as "Huhuanyong Line"), and Professor Zhang Qiyun’s research on historical geography.

Nowadays, with the development of academic disciplines built in "Double first-class" initiative, the SGOS actively strengthens and adjusts the discipline orientation, promoting the scientific development of Earth surface system, having undertaken many research programs sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Science Foundation in such fields as Earth surface processes and environmental changes, coastal zone environment and development, remote sensing in global change, investigation and utilization of land resources, global climate change and onset of glacial and interglacial cycles. Those research programs focus on dealing with the scientific issues of the International Earth system, and solving the contradiction between social, economic development and utilization of environment resources, having cultivated a group of high-level leaders in such disciplines.

The SGOS has 130 full-time faculty, staff and post-doctor, including Professor Ying Wang and Professor Chenghu Zhou, Academicians of China Academy of Sciences, and Professor Jingming Chen, Academician of the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada, as well as winners of the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars, Professors of Changjiang Scholars Program, Distinguished University Teachers and Chief Scientists of Key R&D Programs, such as Shu Gao, Huayu Lu, Shugui Hou, Xianjin Huang, Manchun Li, Yaping Wang and Weimin Ju

The SGOS, for disciplinary development of four undergraduate majors, has established the Department of Physical Geography, the Department of Land Resources and Tourism Sciences, the Department of Geographic Information Science and the Department of Coastal Marine Science. Moreover, with the International Institute for Earth System Science and the “Sino-German Research Centre for Geosciences”, the SGOS has a good foundation in cultivating high-quality students. Over 80 undergraduate students, 110 master students and 50 Ph.D. students are enrolled into the SGOS every year. After graduation, most of undergraduate students continue their study for higher degree, while some others are employed by government agencies, institutions and enterprises, with an employment rate approximately reaching 100%.

SGOS is equipped with the state-of-art research laboratories and field bases, including the Huangshan National Park Ecosystem Field Scientific Observation and Research Station (MOE), laboratories of AMS C-14 dating, ICP-MS U-Pb dating, OSL dating, Pb-210 dating, tree ring chronology as well as laboratories for isotopic, spectral and geochemical analysis of sediments, ice core and organic matter.

The SGOS has won a series of national and provincial awards, such as the second class prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award (Manchun Li et al., 2014. Analysis of Integrated Remote Sensing Monitoring and Decision Support in the South China Sea and Its Peripheral Areas), the first class prize of the Ministry of Education’s Natural Science Award (Huayu Lu et al., 2016. Response of Desert-Loess Sedimentation Processes to Climate Change in Northern China during Late Quaternary), the second class prize of the National Teaching Achievement Award (2014), the second class prize of Jiangsu Provincial Teaching Achievement Award (2017) and the special prize of the National Geographic Information Science Teaching Achievement Award (2017). Annual publications by SGOS are around 500 in peer-review journals, with 60% of them published in international scientific journals, including some of the high-profile journals, such as Science, Nature communications, PNAS, Science Bulletin, Science Advances.