Vidal de la Blache, Paul

Vidal de la Blache, Paul (1845-1918), French geographer, who stressed the effects of geography on history and is regarded as the main pioneer of human geography in France. His best-known work is Tableau de la Géographie de la France, first published in 1903 as an introduction to a history of France by Ernest Lavisse and later published separately. Educated at the École Normale Supérieure, Vidal de la Blache taught at Nancy and Paris, where he founded the periodical Annales de Géographie (1891), which he subsequently edited for many years; in 1894 he published the Atlas Général: Histoire et Géographie. His most innovative works, Principes de la Géographie Humane (1923; Principles of Human Geography, 1926), and the 15-volume Géographie Universelle (1927-1948, co-edited and completed by Lucien Gallois), were published posthumously.