REPORT OF COMMISSION VII 
GVII-79 
The Development of Two Land 
Classification Theories 
For centuries geographers have striven 
to classify land and so to better understand 
the earth around them. From Julius 
Caesar, who divided Gaul into three 
parts, to Amerigo Vespucci, who divided 
the new world, from Captain Cook to Ad 
miral Byrd, each has tried to label and 
describe the land masses of the earth. 
Most of the early classifications of land 
were haphazard and without a scientific 
basis. 
Early in this century Davis (8) devel 
oped a systematic method for classifying 
land forms based on the way each devel 
oped through geological history. This meth 
od was accepted by many both in the 
United States and abroad, and it became 
the foundation of a whole school of physi 
ography. 
The Davisian theory of land form classi 
fication was expanded to apply to whole 
regions by two of his disciples, Bowman 
and Fenneman. Bowman (3) divided the 
United States into physiographic prov 
inces, each of which had similar geological 
structures which had been acted on by the 
same processes and were in similar stages 
of development. 
Several years after this pioneer effort, 
Fenneman, as chairman of a committee of 
the Association of American Geographers, 
reworked the same ground and refined the 
classifications (9), dividing each province 
into sections and these again into districts. 
The committee intended that these sub 
divisions should form a universally recog 
nized framework within which geographers 
could make regional studies. The theory 
behind this work was that geological 
formations influenced other geographical 
relationships creating regional unity. How 
ever, it was evident that both Bowman and 
Fenneman went far beyond what Davis 
had intended, since his system was de 
signed to explain land forms—usually the 
landscape within view—and not whole re 
gions. Nor did Davis relate other geo 
graphical elements to land forms. 
Following World War I American geog 
raphers began to take increasing interest 
in human ecology following the lead of 
European geographers such as Ratzel, 
Vidal de la Blache, and Bruhnes. These 
men focused their attention less on the 
geological past and more on the geo 
graphical elements which associate them 
selves together on the land. They regarded 
the physiographic landscape not as the 
subject for primary study but as the stage 
on which man plays his part. Each of the 
physical elements of the landscape was 
important only as it affected man and 
influenced his development patterns and 
his way of life. Men who espoused the 
cause of human geography complained 
that physiographic classifications were too 
broad and lacking in pertinence. Peltier 
(11) argued that: 
“the degree of generalization used by Bowman 
and Fenneman . . . does not permit the exam 
ination of areal relations with the phenomena 
of human occupance. . . . The categories of 
landforms useful for chorographic scale studies 
leading to the recognition of physiographic 
provinces are too highly generalized to match 
with specific features developed by man: such 
as fields and farms, roads and settlements, or 
cities and factories. . . . The categories deter 
mined on generic principles overlooked too 
many slight variations of slope to be applicable 
to the topographic or detailed large-scale study 
of areal relations.” 
Even before other American geographers 
began turning to human geography, Bow 
man began going through a metamorphosis 
of his own. His Forest Physiography, pub 
lished in 1914, in which he delimited the 
physiographic provinces of the United 
States, was largely based on the observa 
tions of Powell and other field men of the 
U. S. Geological Survey, whose atten 
tion was naturally drawn to structural 
similarities from one locality to another. 
When Bowman described regions which he 
himself had explored, his descriptions re 
flected what attracted his greatest interest: 
the human relationship to his environment. 
As a result of field work in South America 
his writings in 1916 (4) show that he was 
repeatedly struck by the close correlation 
between topographic features and the 
activities of man. He continued to make 
physiographic descriptions in the Davis 
tradition, but he never again drew a 
physiographic subdivision line. He finally 
dropped physiographic descriptions al 
together in his last South American re 
gional study (5) in 1924. He devoted most 
of his energy to the discussion of the rela 
tionships between earth and man. By 1920 
the full impact of their meaning had be 
come apparent to him, when he prepared 
Chapter VII of Brunhe’s English edition