GEORGE VALSAN

George Valsan (January 21, 1885, Bucharest— August 6, 1935, Carmen Sylva, Constanța) was a Romanian geographer who was a member of the Romanian Academy. He was educated at Bucharest, Berlin and Paris. A former professor at the University of Iasi, Cluj and Bucharest; he was president of the Romanian ethnographic Society and director of the Institute of Geography of Cluj.

Prof. G. Valsan’s biogeography course has been published in two editions (1934, 1938) in Bucharest, being the first course os such kind in the Romanian university education.

His the first geographer who used the notion of „vegetation layer”. He also divided fitogeography into: floristic, genetic, ecological, sociological, showing that „the study of vegetation masses is essentially geographical”.

Valsan divides the earth in 6 „biological’ regions: Holartic, Ethiopian, Malay, Indomalaysian, Neotropical and Australian.

Valsan was also one of the earliest research workers who have admitted the theory of equilibrium of the biotic structures.

His doctoral thesis, „Campia Romana” (1915)  (Romanian Plain), a fundamental work of the Romanian geographical literature is the first study of a big geographic unit. By this study, together with Constantin Bratescu he laid the foundation of modern geomorphology in Romania.

1. George Valsan divided fitogeography in:

a)      6 branches

b)      4 branches

c)      5 branches

2. George Valsan was the first to use the notion of:

a)      Geomorphology

b)      Vegetation layer

c)      Biogeography

3. George Valsan divides the earth in:

a)      6 biological regions

b)      5 biological regions

c)      4 biological regions

By Prof. Raluca Dabija