Landscape refers to everything you can see when you look across an area of land: the hills, valleys, trees, rivers, buildings, and fields that make up a particular view. When you stand at a scenic overlook and gaze at the mountains stretching into the distance, you're taking in the landscape.

The word also describes a type of painting or photograph that shows outdoor scenery. Artists like Albert Bierstadt created stunning landscape paintings of the American West, capturing its dramatic mountains and wide-open spaces. A landscape photographer might wake up before dawn to capture how morning light transforms an ordinary hillside into something magical.

Landscapes vary enormously depending on where you are. The flat, grassy landscape of Kansas looks completely different from the rocky, desert landscape of Arizona or the forested landscape of Maine. Each region has its own character shaped by climate, geology, and what grows there.

In a related sense, landscape can describe the overall character of a situation. A teacher might discuss the “educational landscape” when talking about how schools are changing, or a scientist might describe the “political landscape” surrounding climate research. Here, landscape suggests the big picture: all the important features and how they relate to each other, just like viewing actual terrain from a hilltop.