Geographical Magazine

Landscapes are never finished. We tend to think of geography as something solid – mountains, rivers, forests, borders and cities fixed reassuringly in place. But this month’s issue is full of reminders
that places are constantly being made and remade, both physically
and in our imaginations. Nowhere is that clearer than in Iceland (Page 54).
The treeless landscape we think of as quintessentially Icelandic is a human creation, the result of centuries of settlement, grazing and exploitation.
Today, ambitious attempts to restore the country’s forests raise an intriguing question: which version of a landscape should we regard as the ‘real’ one?
And maps reveal how generations have remade and reshaped the world, reflecting everything from religious belief and imperial ambition to war and political power (Page 46). This month, Tim Marshall (Page 25) explores something equally fundamental: the names we give places and what changing them tells us about identity.
On Page 30, we talk to Robert Macfarlane about his search for a ‘geography of hope’. Landscapes may shape us, but we shape them too. The landscapes we inherit are never quite the landscapes we leave behind.