Abstract：Li Xu-dan (Shu-tan Lee, 1911-1985) is a human geographer, regional geographer, and geographical education expert, devoted his whole life to geographical research and education, cultivated several generations of geographical talents, and has students all over the world. As to the geographical academics, he emphasized human-environment harmony and united geography, advocated regional research, and focused on the exploration of geographic educational theories. He is one of the founders of Geographical Knowledge, an editorial member of the German journal GeoJournal. He is editor-in-chief of Human Geography (a fascicule of the Chinese encyclopedia), and acts as the compiler of several influential human geographic collections. He translated several important geographical books into Chinese. He paid much attention to fieldwork, and believed that doing fieldwork is of much importance to geographical research. He insisted that the main direction of human geography in China should be practical problem-based with new and modern geographical methods and approaches. After the open door policy was set out in later 1970s, he proposed that we should revive human geography and develop it fully instead of just develop economic geography at the fourth national congress of geographical candidates in the end of 1979. He wrote several articles calling for the public and the academy to realize the importance of human geography in China, and provided his opinions on how to develop Chinese human geography. In order to compensate the lost time during the Cultural Revolution and former similar historical periods, his academic passion was triggered after he returned to the leading position of the department of geography, Nanjing Normal University, and he worked very hard and had many academic publications. He was regarded the founder of modern Chinese human geography by Chinese academician Wu Chuan-jun at a conference in Nanjing in 1988.
汤茂林, 金其铭. 李旭旦先生的学术思想和贡献及其他——纪念李旭旦先生诞辰100周年[J]. 人文地理, 2011, 26(4): 153-160.
TANG Mao-lin, JIN Qi-ming. LI XU-DAN: GEOGRAPHICAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND LIFE. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, 2011, 26(4): 153-160.
