Spatial orientation and direction are core areas of human and animal thinking. But unlike animals, human populations vary considerably in their spatial thinking. This book shows that these differences correlate with language, which is probably largely responsible for these different cognitive styles. The book reports a large set of cross-cultural studies, investigating spatial memory, reasoning, types of gesture and wayfinding abilities. It sheds new light on the relationship between language and cognition, and on cross-cultural differences in thinking. It will appeal to all students of language and the cognitive sciences.