Emmanuel de Martonne. The Vidalian approach which dominated the scene of French geographical writings in the late 19th and early 20th century, was vigorously pursued by his disciples and successors. Emmanuel de Martonne was a student and son-in-law of Vidal de La Blache. De Martonne, from the beginning specialized in Physical Geography and his special area of concentration was Central Europe. He studied the physical geography of Carpathians. His main interest was also in glacial erosion of Alps. In 1904 he met William Morris Davis in U.S.A. on the occasion of the Eighth International Geographical Congress and was much impressed by his work on geomorphology. The most popular works of Martonne were Traite de Geographie Physique and La France Physique. He inspired many French geographers to work in the field of physical geography.
Albert Demangeon was also one of the outstanding students of Vidal de La Blache. Though Demangeon was a close friend of Martonne, he concentrated mainly in Human Geography. Demangeon devoted most of time to the editorship of Annals, and contributed to this journal 31 articles and 98 notes.
Demangeon made valuable contributions in the spatial variations of farmsteads, which he pursued throughout his life. He wrote in transport geography, population and international economics. He also made a classification of lands and prepared land use maps. He advised his students to work on the major population groups of Far East; the relations of White and Negroes; Irrigation in arid countries; and the growth of great cities.
From the Vidalian tradition, geography was studied with new approach during the inter-war period. With the introduction of new tools and techniques, there appeared more stress of analytical study. This trend was more visible in the field of agricultural-geography. The French scholars also adopted sophisticated statistical techniques. This trend led to the inter-disciplinary approach to develop regional synthesis. Among the younger generation, there is more emphasis on the locational analysis of phenomena.
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