I had tactile map of my country, Europe, whole Earth for final school exams. Borders were marked, biggest mountains, longest rivers, most important cities. There was contracted Braille and bold black text, for orientation on map borders just like on typical ones were coordinated, colors were very bright contrasted for people with rest vision.
I really liked terrain maps they had very different structures for mountains, forests, lakes. Roads, borders, railroads used different types of lines. All was exciting to touch.
When my sight allowed i used very enlarged pieces of nap stickers together or special naps for low vision with electronic magnifier. I had to memorize a lot use different media to get trough school and final exam but i managed it somehow. I was legally blind at that time using around 20x Magnification, no accessible pc was available i learned geography mostly trough tactile maps and voice dictation, text.

I had a large Braille atlas as a kid which had many different maps in it. I won't say it gave me the best knowledge of geography but it was certainly memorable, and I occasionally wonder what became of it. I remember a map of the world with dots representing population density among others.

Basically, I'm very good at all the geography-related knowledge that I can have without needing my eyes. For example I can tell you by heart that Port Moresby is the capital of Papua New Guinea and the Suez Channel connects the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. These are things I can know because they're relatively easy to learn, even if you're blind. I can also tell you that Pakistan borders both Afghanistan and India because that's something I can read up on Wikipedia. I know that Vietnam has a sub-tropical climate with lots of rain forest and the occasional landmine, whereas Mongolia has arid steppes and a coolish/mild continental climate. Some things I also know from having personally experienced them. For example I know the southwest of the US is very arid and Finland has a lot of lakes. These are all things that I can know despite being blind.

However, there are things that are much harder to know. For example I wouldn't be able to tell you what the shape of Poland is, despite being European. I have an extremely rough idea but that's it. If you asked me about the shape of Israel, I'd have absolutely no idea whatsoever. I also can't tell you about the different rivers and mountain ranges. For example I'm from Switzerland and I'm **extremely** confused about all the different mountains and valleys. Swiss people are in love with hiking, it's considered a national pastime that everyone engages in. It's therefore also a very common topic of conversation. People would often say: "I hiked from XY village across the so-and-so pass into the so-and-so valley and from there across the so-and-so pass to the summit of blah blah blah..." These conversations sometimes go on for hours and they always leave me utterly confused. Without being able to see, it's impossible to understand the landscape these people talk about. I can look up on Wikipedia what Canton (State) a specific mountain is located in but that's not helpful. There are literally thousands of mountains and people often traverse from one to the next. It's extremely confusing.

This is something that I think I would only be able to grasp with a tactile map (having attended public schools, I never had one of those). And I think even with a tactile map, it would probably be quite challenging. There are certain things that you just need your eyes for.

Well...
I definitely agree that, one, geography is a very visual subject matter, two, most people sorta absorb it through maps in classrooms, news, etc.
I've been interested in geography since I was like 5 or something. Used to have a talking smart globe, which had a pen that you would hover over parts of the world, and it would tell you all sorts of info, country name, capital city, population, official languages, fin facts, etc.
I have some remaining vision, so I could also see things like Google Earth.

Most schools don't offer geography as a subject to visually impaired students as it is too hard to adapt to make accessible. Somehow my parents convinced the school to put me in lessons. I then chose it for one of my GCSE options - if you are not in the UK, GCSEs are courses we take for two years aged 14-16 - and am halfway through that. For maps, graphs, charts, etc, we are using heat-raised diagrams as we do for all other subjects. They work fairly well. The lines are very thick so some details have to go (or you make it absolutely huge). Only other issue is trying to remember the key of a map as you read it. i.e. that wavy lines is a river vs filled in blocks are urban settlements. Once you use a particular diagram for a few minutes you get the hang of it.

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