“自然景观”一词最早是和风景画、景观设计的词语一起出现,是更接近自然的风格。亚历山大·冯·洪堡(1769 – 1859)更进一步的概念化,将自然景观和文化景观分开。1908年时,地理学家奥托·施吕特(英语:Otto Schlüter)发展出“原始景观”Urlandschaft以及“文化景观”Kulturlandschaft的词语,试图突显地理科学中,一个不同于其他科学的主题。早期地理学家使用“自然景观”一词可以回推到卡尔·欧·绍尔(英语:Carl O. Sauer)1925年的论文《景观形态》(The Morphology of Landscape)[4]
"The area prior to the introduction of man 's activity is represented by one body of morphologic facts. The forms that man has introduced are another set. We may call the former, with reference to man, the original, natural landscape. In its entirety it no longer exists in many parts of the world, but its reconstruction and understanding are the first part of formal morphonology." [1]
"The cultural landscape is fashioned from a natural landscape by a culture group. Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the cultural landscape the result." [2]
The European Environment Agency's planned forest naturalness index is an example of an attempt to define one type of natural landscape in Europe. The Agency lists forests in three categories: (1) Plantations; (2) Semi-natural; and (3) Naturally dynamic. The latter are "forests whose structure, composition and function have been shaped by natural dynamics without substantial anthropogenic influence over a long period of time".
Carl O. Sauer, "The Morphology of Landscape" University of California Publications in Geography, vol. 2, No. 2, 12 October 1925, pp. 19–53 (scroll down): [3]