Tracing landscape characters through place names in rural Mediterranean

Place names are a linguistic form that people attach to the landscape. Rural landscapes are maybe one of the most refined cultural manifestations revealing a fundamental effort for human existence and locating their actions through place names. In this research, place names were used as a means to explore rural landscape characters of the Serik district in the Turkish Mediterranean. A total number of 1243 place names were subcategorised in four large character groups: natural features, land use, cultural, and visual features and were further analysed into twenty indicative landscape characteristics. The results showed that characteristics of the rural landscape in Serik were dominated by two main components: biophysical features as a response to the natural environment and the position of a locality in relation to maintenance of local livelihoods. In conclusion, the accuracy and validity of place names is still quite precise in the definition of the characters in rural landscapes where intact human-nature relations are unique but whose characters have been under the pressure of fragmentation. Here, the knowledge of multi-layered forms of place names offers a readily available rich inventory that can be applied to the planning and management of rural landscapes, particularly in the absence of other biophysical and cultural data.