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Galois geometry (so named after the 19th century French Mathematician Évariste Galois) is the branch of finite geometry that is concerned with algebraic and analytic geometry over a finite field (or Galois field). More narrowly, a Galois geometry may be defined as a projective space over a finite field.
Objects of study include vector spaces, affine and projective spaces over finite fields and various structures that are contained in them. In particular, arcs, ovals, hyperovals, unitals, blocking sets, ovoids, caps, spreads and all finite analogues of structures found in non-finite geometries.
The first significant result in Galois geometry is the celebrated Segre's theorem of 1955. This states that in a Galois geometry of odd order (a projective plane defined over a finite field of odd characteristic) every oval is a conic. At the 1958 International Mathematical Congress Beniamino Segre presented a survey of results in Galois geometry known up to then.