![]() ![]() The von Thünen model incorporated four areas surrounding the city center. ![]() He then asked himself: What would be the best spatial arrangement of agricultural activities within this Isolated State? Von Thünen integrated these assumptions with what he had learned while running his estate. Fourth, von Thünen contended that the farmers would transport their own goods to market (no FedEx here), and that they would do so by oxcart, overland, straight to the city. Third, there would be a single, centrally located city in the Isolated State, surrounded by an empty, unoccupied wilderness. Second, there would be no river-valleys or mountains to interrupt a flat land area. Von Thünen made some limiting assumptions to accomplish this experiment.įirst, he stated that the soil and the climate would be uniform throughout the region. In essence, he created a pseudo-regional laboratory, where he could identify the factors that would affect the locational distribution of farms surrounding a central urban area. This country would be devoid of outside influences that would disturb the inner workings of the economy. Von Thünen called his model The Isolated State because for the purpose of analysis, he wanted to establish a self-contained country. He published his studies under the title The Isolated State, and his conclusions are still being discussed and debated among geographers today. Using all the data he collected, von Thünen began to write about the spatial structure of agriculture. Von Thünen’s model helps explain the relationship between the cost of land and the cost to transport the crop to market. His attention to detail turned into a passion for a subject that still is of interest to economic geographers of today-the effects of distance and transportation costs on the location of productive activity. He owned a large farming estate near the German city of Rostock, and for more than 40 years, he kept precise records of his estate’s transactions. The agrarian revolution that accompanied the industrial revolution caught the eye of a German economist-farmer named Johann Heinrich von Thünen. Who was Von Thünen and why is He Important to AP® Human Geography?Īccess to markets has been, and still is, a huge problem for farmers all over the world. This AP® Human Geography study guide will help you understand how his theory is used to explain agricultural land use and the changing spatial patterns in rural areas. However, the basic concepts of the von Thünen model are still valid. In the time since von Thünen, changes in communications and transportation technologies and progress in food preservation methods, such as refrigeration, have changed the significance of some of his theory’s variables. His significant contribution was that he was able to identify and explain the spatial elements that help decide how to use the land. Von Thünen analyzed these decisions based on the land’s physical characteristics and its position relative to market centers. Long before von Thünen came up with his model on agricultural land use, farmers all over the world made rational land-use decisions. Rather, it is almost always the result of logical human decisions. Rural land use is not a matter of chance. This study guide will help you understand this model and how it applies to the AP® Human Geography Exam. The von Thünen model was key to solving a big problem in his day-how to balance the cost of land with the best crop to produce. In the early eighteenth century, Johann Heinrich von Thünen designed one of the very first geographical models. It is also important to you because the effects of agriculture on the human population are an essential part of the study of AP® Human Geography. You and I depend on agriculture to survive. Agriculture is a fundamental economic activity that found in virtually every corner of our planet. ![]()
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