cultural landscape

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The Dresden Elbe Valley World Heritage Site is according to the UNESCO "an outstanding example of land use, representing an exceptional development of a major Central-European city" having almost half a million inhabitants.

Cultural Landscapes have been defined by the World Heritage Committee as distinct geographical areas or properties uniquely "..represent[ing] the combined work of nature and of man.." ^[1]. This concept has been adapted and developed within international heritage arenas (UNESCO) as part of an international effort to reconcile "..one of the most pervasive dualisms in Western thought - that of nature and culture" ^[2]
The World Heritage Committee has identified and adopted three categories of cultural landscape, ranging from (i) those landscapes most deliberately 'shaped' by people, through (ii) full range of 'combined' works, to (iii) those least evidently 'shaped' by people (yet highly valued). The three categories extracted from the Committee's Operational Guidelines, are as follows^[3]:
(i) "a landscape designed and created intentionally by man";
(ii) an "organically evolved landscape" which may be a "relict (or fossil) landscape" or a "continuing landscape";
(iii) an "associative cultural landscape" which may be valued because of the "religious, artistic or cultural associations of the natural element"