Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.[1] The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, marine navigation, aeronautic navigation, and space navigation.[2]

It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks. All navigational techniques involve locating the navigator's position compared to known locations or patterns.

Navigation, in a broader sense, can refer to any skill or study that involves the determination of position and direction.[2] In this sense, navigation includes orienteering and pedestrian navigation.[2]Marine navigation explains how to map the many natural and man-made features associated with the safe movement of ships and boats on the sea. See Marine for details about more general features of the marine environment and Coastline for details about how to tag features found along and close to the shore. Waterways provides information about navigation of inland waterways.