Johannes Gabriel Granö and his Cartography- Oriented Landscape Research. A Reviewing Appreciation

Abstract

The present article shall bring to mind the extraordinary stimuli given by Johannes Gabriel Granö (1882 – 1956) to international landscape research through his exceptionally wide spectrum of studies. It begins with his expeditions into the Altai Mountains and to Northwestern Mongolia at the beginning of the 20th century and his multifaceted publications about their results – also in difficult times – like in 1945. The paper further treats Granö’s pioneering works about geography and cartography of Estonia at the beginning of the 1920s, his methodological and applied articles about physiognomic landscape characteristics, both in detailed as well as in overview scales – and mostly demonstrated in his Finnish motherland. Granö’s monograph „Reine Geographie“ / „Pure Geography“ – first published in German language in 1929 – revived, after its translation into English (in 1997), half a century later eager interest in his activities. In 2002, the Universities of Turku (Finland) and Tartu (Estonia) responded to this development through the establishment of a Granö Centre as a site of encounters and exchanges. In the context of the European Landscape Convention (ECL) it becomes obvious how far J.G. Granö was ahead of his time.