In geography, land refers to the solid, exposed surface of the Earth that is not covered by water. It makes up roughly 29% of the planet’s surface and encompasses everything from mountain peaks to valley floors, coastlines to continental interiors. But geographers think about land as more than just dirt and rock. It’s a concept that spans physical terrain, natural resources, human activity, and economic value.
Land vs. the Lithosphere
The term “land” is sometimes confused with “lithosphere,” but they describe different things. The lithosphere is the rigid, rocky outer shell of the Earth, consisting of the crust and the solid outermost layer of the upper mantle. It extends to a depth of about 60 miles (100 km) and is broken into roughly a dozen tectonic plates. Land, by contrast, refers specifically to the surface portion of the lithosphere that sits above sea level. The ocean floor is part of the lithosphere too, but geographers wouldn’t call it “land.”
This distinction matters because geography is fundamentally concerned with what happens on and near the surface: the shape of the terrain, the ecosystems it supports, how humans use it, and how it changes over time.
The Four Major Landforms
Geographers classify the physical shape of land into four main categories: mountains, hills, plateaus, and plains.
- Mountains are the tallest landforms, formed primarily by tectonic plate movement pushing rock upward. Mount Everest in Nepal, the highest point on Earth, is the most extreme example.
- Hills are elevated areas that are lower and generally more rounded than mountains. There’s no universally agreed-upon height that separates a hill from a mountain.
- Plateaus are flat, elevated areas that rise sharply above the surrounding landscape on at least one side. They can form through volcanic activity or the uplift of tectonic plates.
- Plains are broad, flat stretches of land, often found along rivers or coastlines. Many of the world’s most productive agricultural regions sit on plains.
Beyond these four, geographers study countless smaller landform types: valleys, canyons, deltas, dunes, cliffs, and caves, among others. Each one reflects a combination of forces, from tectonic activity deep underground to wind, water, and ice working on the surface over millions of years.
Land Cover vs. Land Use
One of the most important distinctions in modern geography is the difference between land cover and land use. Land cover describes what physically exists on the surface: forest, grassland, wetland, bare soil, ice, or open water. It can be mapped directly from satellite and aerial imagery.
Land use, on the other hand, describes how people are using that surface. A patch of cleared forest might be farmland, a construction site, or an abandoned lot. You can’t determine land use from a satellite photo alone because it depends on human intent and activity. A grassy field could be a park, a cattle ranch, or a future housing development. Understanding both layers is essential for urban planning, conservation, and resource management.
How Humans Categorize Land Use
Geographers generally divide land use into urban and rural categories. Urban land use includes residential neighborhoods, commercial districts, industrial zones, recreational spaces like parks and stadiums, and land devoted to transportation and utilities. Rural land use covers agricultural cropland, fallow fields, plantations, rangeland, and forests.
Only about 10.7% of the world’s total land area is classified as arable, meaning suitable for growing crops, according to World Bank data from 2022. That number varies enormously by country. Bangladesh has roughly 61% arable land, India about 52%, and the United States around 17%. These figures shape everything from food security to trade policy to migration patterns, making land use one of the most practically significant topics in geography.
Land as an Economic Resource
Classical economics treats land as one of three fundamental factors of production, alongside labor and capital. In this framework, “land” means far more than soil. It includes all natural resources and their locations: water, mineral deposits, the radio spectrum, air rights above cities, aquifers, wild fisheries, falling water for hydropower, and natural scenery.
What makes land economically distinctive is that it isn’t produced and can’t be reproduced. It doesn’t wear out, depreciate, or become obsolete the way a factory or a piece of equipment does. A plot of land in a city center holds its location permanently, even as buildings on it are demolished and rebuilt. This permanence and scarcity give land a unique role in economics. Land ownership has historically been, and remains, a major basis for the concentration of wealth.
Who Owns and Controls Land
Geography also examines land tenure, the systems by which land is owned, managed, and transferred. These systems vary widely across cultures and time periods. At one end of the spectrum, an independent farmer owns a parcel outright with a formal title registered with the government (known as freehold ownership). At the other end, communal tenure systems assign land use rights through a collective authority, with no individual ownership.
Between those extremes, geographers have identified several other arrangements: squatting on public or private land without formal title, large estates (sometimes called latifundia), feudal tenures where laborers work land controlled by a lord or state, and smallholder leasing where farmers rent from private landowners. Communal land systems have been especially prevalent in the Pacific Islands, Africa, and many indigenous communities worldwide. In the 20th century, communist governments in China and Russia also established communal systems through state policy. The type of tenure in a given region profoundly affects agricultural productivity, environmental stewardship, and social inequality.
Land Degradation and Environmental Change
Land is not static. One of the most pressing concerns in geography today is land degradation, the process by which land loses its productive capacity or ecological function. Agriculture is the dominant driver. Water and wind erosion have accompanied farming since its earliest days and remain the most widespread forms of soil degradation globally.
Climate change is accelerating these processes. Heavier, more intense rainfall increases soil erosion. Prolonged droughts strip away vegetation, leaving soil exposed and vulnerable to further erosion and nutrient loss. Rising sea levels erode coastlines worldwide, and in areas prone to cyclones, the combination of higher seas and stronger storms compounds the damage. In some regions, climate shifts are triggering transitions between entire biomes, turning forests into grasslands as water availability and natural disturbance patterns change.
These changes ripple outward. Degraded land supports fewer crops, less biodiversity, and fewer people. It stores less carbon, worsening the climate feedback loop. For geographers, tracking how land changes over time, and why, is central to understanding the relationship between human societies and the planet they depend on.