John Peter Cole (9 December 1928 – 1 April 2020) was a British geographer. Cole was born in Sydney, Australia. He graduated from the University of Nottingham in 1950. He later returned there to join the staff of the Geography Department, rising to become Professor of Urban and Regional Geography. He was Emeritus Professor of Geography at the university. From 1957 he wrote or co-authored over 25 books on geography, including Geography of World Affairs, first published in 1959. His work ran from school texts to academic papers, and he was an early adopter of computers in geographical studies. He was a visiting professor at the Universities of Washington, Columbia, Mexico, Valparaiso, Nanjing and Beijing. He retired in 1994.