Landscape

2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Geology and geophysics

Photograph of a landscape Oeschinen Lake in the Swiss Alps, an example of a highly diversified landscape.

In Physical Geography and subfields like Landscape ecology, and Environmental geography, the technical term landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including physical elements such as landforms, living elements of flora and fauna, abstract elements such as lighting and weather conditions, and human elements, for instance human activity or the built environment.

Etymology

The word landscape comes from the Dutch word landschap, from land (directly equivalent to the English word land) and the suffix -schap, corresponding to the English suffix "-ship".

Landscape, first recorded in 1598, was borrowed as a painters' term from Dutch during the 16th century, when Dutch artists were on the verge of becoming masters of the landscape genre. The Dutch word landschap had earlier meant simply 'region, tract of land' but had acquired the artistic sense, which it brought over into English, of 'a picture depicting scenery on land'.