The evolution of life on earth, the appearance of man, and social and historical progress are viewed as stages in a single process of development of the surface of the earth. Using the forum of a popular-science journal, a Soviet geographer noted for his theoretical work on regionalization envisages a time when the natural geographic envelope of the earth (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere) will be so saturated with man-made engineering structures as to become a new entity called anthroposphere. This entity will have the characteristics ot a world-wide city with its municipal institutions. It will be highly organized in combined functional-nodal regions, benefitting from a multilevel system of services and a hierarchy of transport centers. It will be a “superorganism” with remarkable analogies to a living organism.