Landscape

(CC) Photo: Tobias Alt
A mountainous landscape at Angels Landing in Zion National Park, Utah.

In ecology, a landscape is the physical environment where a group of organisms or ecosystems occur and interact.

In environmental geography, landscape studies are concerned with the interactions between humans and the environment in specific areas. The term landscape comes from the German Landschaft, referring to the area that one's eye can comprehend in a single view. This includes the study of both physical and human systems, with considerable attention paid to cultural, political, and aesthetic aspects. Carl Sauer's work traced the transition from a physical landscape to a cultural landscape, marked and defined by human activity.