Named Landforms of the World: A Geomorphological and Physiographic Compilation

Prior to the current era of digital geomorphological mapping, global and regional-scale land surface characterization was advanced by qualitative interpretations that relied on human visualization aided disciplinary knowledge geophysical processes combined with extensive field study. In early twentieth century, Fenneman proposed devise systematic physiographic divisions United States in 1916 produced what is still regarded as an authoritative map these divisions. His regions were developed provide context when describing characteristics smaller areas using well-known regional descriptors. 1968, geographer Richard E. Murphy published a large-format “Landforms World” fill gap suite standard classroom maps. 1990, British geomorphologist M. Bridges World Geomorphology, providing first treatment description divisions, provinces, sections—the same hierarchical partitioning concepts used decades earlier. twenty-first geographic information systems (GIS) technologies are nearly ubiquitous, yet neither Murphy’s nor Bridges’s work existed GIS data. To further illuminate their pioneering work, we (1) recompiled landforms spatial combination modern existing data layers, (2) basis for boundaries sections described Bridges. Our aggregation yields new resource, Named Landforms World, version 2.0, which provides reference-level, basemap-quality layer can significantly facilitate assessing, understanding Earth features.