Cheetahs—Ghosts of the Grasslands
By Richard Conniff
Photographs by Chris Johns

Hunted by ranchers, attacked by lions, and deprived of much of their African and Asian habitat, cheetahs in the wild number perhaps 12,000. Can conservationists move quickly enough to protect the world’s fastest land animal?

• Look over blueprints for the perfect predator.

Florida Keys: Paradise With Attitude
By Frank Deford
Photographs by Bob Sacha

Paying the price of popularity, this South Florida island chain faces escalating real estate costs and degradation of the only living barrier reef in the continental U.S. But that hasn’t stopped the party.

• Hear Deford tell tales of the Keys.

Ancient Greece
By Caroline Alexander
Photographs by James L. Stanfield

Echoes of Homer’s epic poem the Iliad emerge from Bronze Age sites around the Aegean Sea in the first of three articles about this legendary civilization. Double Map Supplement: Ancient Greece.

• Is the spirit of ancient Greece alive or dead? Read excerpts from the article and share your thoughts in our forum.

Geographic Century
By William L. Allen

As the Society pushed the technological boundaries of photography, its staid research journal was transformed by arresting images of our world.

• Get our list of notable GEOGRAPHIC articles from the past century.

The Brothers Grimm
By Thomas O’Neill
Photographs by Gerd Ludwig

Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Riding Hood: The fairy-tale characters that have entered world culture came alive on paper in the early 1800s when Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected oral tales in their German homeland.

• Read and hear unvarnished versions of favorite tales.

Survey 2000
By Valerie A. May

More than 80,000 people from 178 countries and territories logged on to National Geographic’s Web site to take our sociological survey. What they had to say may surprise you.

• Get survey results.

Celebrations of Earth; Life Beyond Earth; Rediscovering America; Tibet Embraces the New Year; The Enigma of Beauty; Light in the Deep