Landschafts Kunde. The concept of Landschafts Kunde (landscape science) gained popularity in Germany in the beginning of the 20th century. According to this concept the existing landscape of a meso or micro region is the result of exogenetic, historical and cultural forces. In the study of landscape not only man is taken as an important agent of environment but invisible features like wind, air, temperature and humidity. Landschaft is thus a homogeneous area with a more or less uniform appearance, which is the subject matter of geography and in which the biotic and abiotic things are studied in relation to each other.
Albrecht Penck was a leading German geographer of the early parts of the twentieth century, who formulated the concept of 'geomorphology'. He founded the principles of landforms evolution and showed how the systematic study of features can be approached from the chorological (regional) point of view. In 1910, Penck postulated the hypothesis that the classification of climates can be made with the help of study of landforms even where the meteorological data is not available.
Penck was the first to point out that the effective rainfall of a place between rainfall, runoff and evaporation and that evaporation increases with higher temperature. Moreover, he considered man also as an important agent who carves out the face of the earth. Penck stressed the importance of accurate maps showing relief features for a systematic study of geography. The idea of topographical maps was thus put forward by him. It was because of his suggestions that topographical maps at large
scale i.e. one inch to one mile. During the first fifteen years of 20th century Germans made great strides in the field of geography. After the second world war Germans have developed a new trend that is of cultural-determinism, which is called social geography.
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