Carl O. Sauer, for more than 30 years chairman of the department of geography at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century geography. The study of cultural geography, especially as it has developed in the United States, owes more to Sauer than to any other man.
Published in Chapter:
Cultural Landscape: An Evaluation From Past to Present
Funda Varnaci Uzun (Aksaray University, Turkey) and Mehmet Somuncu (Ankara University, Turkey)
Copyright: © 2018
|Pages: 27
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-4186-8.ch001
Abstract
The “cultural landscape” has been a fundamental concept in geography and was first defined as “landscape modified by human activity” by the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel in 1890. It was introduced to American geography in the 1920s by Carl O. Sauer (American geographer). Since the 1960s, the concept has been widely used in human geography, anthropology, environmental management, and other related fields. One of the major factors that contributed to the recent popularity of its use, on a global scale, was the adoption of cultural landscapes in the International Convention for the World Heritage Convention by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1992. In this chapter, the basis of this concept, its emergence, and its relationships with other scientific disciplines, particularly geography, will be discussed. Moreover, the place of cultural landscapes within protected areas and UNESCO world heritage sites will be more specifically addressed.