What is the Cultural Landscape?

     The cultural landscape is a conceptual term developed by geographer Carl O. Sauer in 1925.  Sauer wanted to identify the study of geography, especially human or cultural geography, as the study of the "cultural landscape."  Very simply, the cultural landscape refers to the human imprint on the earth's surface. What is the "human imprint?"  Anything that human beings have done to change the face of the earth from a purely natural or physical landscape has helped to create a human imprint or a cultural landscape.  All human activities -- ways of making a living, ways of building shelters, food production methods, and even ceremonial and religious practices -- all of these help to form many varied cultural landscapes.