National Geographic magazine reaches 49 million print and digital readers in 33 languages worldwide.
The English edition of the December 2020 issue featured a cover story on North America’s most valuable but at-risk resource. Climate change, pollution, and invasive species threaten the complex ecosystems of the Great Lakes, which helped make the U.S. an economic powerhouse.
Given the North American focus of this cover story, many of the local-language editions featured a variety of different covers.
Ten editions used the Great Lakes as their cover, and the Turkish edition packaged the flagship feature with a companion story on their own lakes, using an image from their coverage.
Other features in this issue were equally popular: The Estonian, Israeli, Dutch, and Slovenian editions opted for a compelling cover from the snakebite crisis story. The Indian, Hungarian, Kazakhs, and Romanian editions featured the living lullabies storyon their covers, while the Italian, Korean, Lithuanian, Russian, and Serbian editions all featured the ethereal Arctic life story.
A few editions featured cover stories from previous months. The Georgian edition used October’s reimagining dinosaurs story, the Indonesian edition used September’s robots revolution story, the Latin American edition used November’s cover story on a world gone viral, and the Polish edition used May’s autism story.
The Czechia edition used the Slovenian edition’s story on Roman cemeteries, the Taiwanese edition featured a cover on mummy workshops from the digital team, and the Thai edition used a story about the Krizna Caves, also from the Slovenian edition.
This month there were also two local cover features: The Arabic edition showcased macro photography, and the Bulgarian edition featured a historical piece on a 10th-century battle.
See below for a round-up of our covers from across the globe.
