Describing Landscapes: Landforms and Natural and Human Features

Hello again. You can already identify common landforms and sort individual features into natural and human-made. Now you will combine those skills into the kind of answer a geography test often asks for: a clear description of a whole landscape.

A landscape is not just one hill, river, or building. It is the complete visible area, including its landforms, natural features, and human features. By the end of this lesson, you should be able to turn what you see in a photograph or map into a precise short paragraph.

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From separate features to a landscape

Read the opening definition and the first paragraph under “Natural Landscape” in National Geographic’s Landscape. Focus on the difference between a view of an area as a whole and the individual features within it.

Here is the key distinction:

Term	Meaning	Example
Landscape	A whole area of Earth’s surface that can be seen from one place	A coastal city with a beach, sea, hills, roads, and hotels
Landform	A distinct natural shape of the land	A mountain, valley, cliff, hill, plain, or plateau
Natural feature	A feature created by natural processes	A river, sea, beach, forest, soil, or rock
Human feature	A feature built, planned, or deliberately changed by people	A road, settlement, farm, bridge, harbour, or dam

A landform is therefore one part of a landscape. A mountain is a landform; a mountain landscape may include mountains, valleys, streams, forests, roads, and villages.

Also remember: not every natural feature is a landform. A river and a forest are natural features, but they are not shapes of land in the same way that a valley or hill is.

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What makes a strong landscape description?

A weak answer simply lists objects:

There are hills, a river, houses, trees, and roads.

This is not wrong, but it does not show how the features fit together. A stronger geographical description groups features, uses accurate vocabulary, and explains where things are in relation to one another:

The landscape is rural and hilly, with steep slopes surrounding a river valley. Natural features include the river, trees, and grassy hillsides. Human features include scattered houses, roads, and fields used for farming.

The second answer is better because it does five useful things:

1. Names the overall type of landscape
   For example: coastal, rural, urban, mountainous, river, or desert.

2. Describes the shape of the land first
   Is it flat, steep, hilly, mountainous, low-lying, or coastal?

3. Identifies landforms accurately
   For example: valley, hill, cliff, beach, mountain, or plain.

4. Separates natural and human features
   This directly shows the skill from the previous lesson.

5. Uses location words
   Such as in the foreground, in the background, beside, along the coast, between, and surrounding.

You do not need to invent details. Describe only what the photograph or map actually shows.

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A reliable writing structure

For a Grade 8 response, use this five-part plan. It works for most photographs and simple maps.

1. Give the overall impression

Begin by naming the type of landscape.

Useful openings include:

• “This is a coastal landscape.”
• “This photograph shows a rural river landscape.”
• “The area is an urban landscape beside the sea.”
• “This is a mountainous landscape with some human development.”

Do not write that a place is completely natural merely because it has mountains or beaches. Most real landscapes contain both natural and human features.

2. Describe the landforms

Next, identify the major shapes of land. Choose the most obvious ones first.

• A high, steep area may be a mountain or hill.
• Low land between higher slopes may be a valley.
• Flat, low land may be a plain.
• Land meeting the sea may form a coast.
• A steep rock face beside the sea is a cliff.

Use describing words that give more detail:

Instead of only naming	Add useful detail
hill	steep, rounded, grassy, wooded
valley	wide, narrow, deep, flat-bottomed
coast	sandy, rocky, sheltered, built-up
river	winding, narrow, wide, flowing through a valley
settlement	dense, scattered, coastal, urban, rural

3. Name the natural features

After the landforms, look for water, vegetation, soil, and rocks. These help make the landscape distinctive.

For example:

Natural features include a sandy beach, the sea, green vegetation, and rocky slopes.

Be precise. A beach is not the same as a coast: the coast is the area where land meets the sea, while a beach is a deposit of sand or pebbles along that coast.

4. Identify the human features

Then explain how people use or change the area.

Look for:

• houses, flats, hotels, schools, and shops
• roads, railways, bridges, and car parks
• fields, fences, farm buildings, and wind turbines
• harbours, piers, sea walls, and boats
• dams and reservoirs

A useful sentence pattern is:

Human features include ___, ___, and ___, showing that people have developed or use this area for ___.

For example:

Human features include hotels, roads, and high-rise buildings, showing that the coast has been developed for settlement and tourism.

5. End with one sentence that connects the features

Your final sentence should show that you understand the landscape as a combination of parts:

Overall, it is a mixed landscape where people have built along a naturally coastal and mountainous setting.

That is much stronger than ending with “It has lots of things in it.”

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Worked example: a coastal urban landscape

Study the photograph below. It shows the coast of Honolulu, Hawaii, with Diamond Head, a volcanic landform, in the background.

Start by observing the scene in layers.

• Background: Diamond Head is a volcanic mountain or crater landform. The ocean extends beyond it.
• Middle ground: A narrow coastal strip contains beaches and developed land.
• Foreground: High-rise buildings, roads, car parks, and coastal structures show dense human development.

A complete description could be:

This is an urban coastal landscape. A sandy beach lies beside the Pacific Ocean, while a steep volcanic mountain rises in the background. Natural features include the sea, beach, vegetation, and volcanic land. Human features include high-rise buildings, roads, car parks, and coastal structures. Overall, the photograph shows a densely built city located between the sea and a volcanic landform.

Notice what this answer does not do:

• It does not call the whole scene “human-made.”
• It does not call the beach or volcanic mountain human features just because they are near a city.
• It does not list features randomly.
• It uses the evidence in the photograph to describe the relationship between the city, coast, and mountain.

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Precision: choose words that match the evidence

A geography answer gains marks when it is accurate. Use the strongest word you can prove from what you see.

If you can see...	A precise description might say...
Many tall buildings close together	“a dense urban settlement”
Buildings spread far apart	“a scattered rural settlement”
Fields with boundaries	“managed agricultural land” or “farmland”
Land sloping sharply upwards	“steep hillsides” or “mountain slopes”
A broad flat area beside a river	“a flat river valley” or “floodplain”
Sand where land meets sea	“a sandy beach along the coast”
A road following the edge of the sea	“a coastal road”

Avoid claims you cannot see. For example, if a photograph shows green land, call it vegetation or grassy land unless you can clearly identify a forest, field, or particular crop.

Similarly, do not explain how a landform formed unless the question asks for formation. At this stage, the goal is to describe what is present and how the parts of the landscape fit together.

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A quick planning grid for test questions

Before writing, take about 30 seconds to organise what you see.

What to look for	Notes you might make
Overall landscape type	Coastal, rural, urban, mountainous
Main landforms	Beach, hill, valley, cliff, mountain, plain
Natural features	Sea, river, trees, soil, rocks
Human features	Houses, roads, fields, harbour, bridge
Relationship between them	Buildings along coast; farms in valley; road through hills

Then turn your notes into connected sentences. Do not copy the grid into your answer as a list unless the question specifically asks you to list features.

A compact test-ready paragraph often follows this pattern:

This is a ___ landscape. The main landforms are ___. Natural features include ___. Human features include ___. Overall, ___.

For instance:

This is a rural valley landscape. The main landforms are steep hills surrounding a broad valley. Natural features include a river, woodland, and grassy slopes. Human features include fields, farm buildings, and a road. Overall, people use the flatter valley floor for farming and settlement.

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Common mistakes to avoid

Calling a landform a landscape

A mountain is a landform. A mountain landscape is the wider area containing mountains and other features.

Treating all green land as natural

Green land may be a natural hillside, but it may also be a managed field, golf course, park, or plantation. Look for straight boundaries, fences, rows, paths, or crops.

Listing without describing

Instead of:

Sea, beach, buildings, mountain.

Write:

A sandy beach borders the sea, while tall buildings occupy the flatter coastal land beneath a volcanic mountain.

Forgetting human features

Even a scene dominated by natural landforms may contain roads, footpaths, farms, houses, or tourism facilities. Look closely before deciding that it is entirely natural.

Naming features that are not visible

Use evidence. Accurate geography means describing what the image or map supports, not guessing extra information.

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Key takeaways

A landscape is the whole visible area, while a landform is one natural shape within that area, such as a hill, valley, mountain, or cliff.

To describe a landscape well:

• state the overall type of landscape;
• describe the major landforms and shape of the land;
• identify natural features;
• identify human features;
• use location words to connect them; and
• finish by describing how people and natural features share the area.

You have now completed the first module’s core skills: identifying landforms, distinguishing natural and human features, and describing a complete landscape. Next, you will begin coastal geography by separating four easily confused processes: weathering, erosion, transportation, and deposition.