In 1938 the predecessors of what is today The Department of History at the United States Military Academy began developing a series of campaign atlases

to aid in teaching cadets a course entitled, "History of the Military Art"

Since then, the Department has produced over six atlases and more than one thousand maps, encompassing not only America’s wars but global conflicts as well.

Military geography is an attempt to understand the geopolitical sphere within a military context.

OCOKA is a useful acronym in the study of military geography: Obstacles, cover and concealment, observation, key terrain and avenues of approach.