Ryan Trinter

Michael Mewborne
AP Human Geography
28 September 2014
J. H. Von Thnen
J. H. Von Thnen was born on his familys estate in Oldenburg, Germany on
June 24, 1783 (Johann Heinrich Von Thnen). He attended an agricultural school and
proceeded to buy an estate in Mecklinburg, Germany (Johann Heinrich Von Thnen).
There he tested his methods in agronomy, or practices of cultivation, as well as
experimentations with his geographic model which was published in his book The
Isolated State with Respect to Agriculture and Political Economy. (Johann Heinrich Von
Thnen). Thnen continued his studies in agronomy at his estate in Mecklinburg,
eventually publishing one more volume of his book The Isolated State until his death of
a stroke on September 22, 1850 (Johann Heinrich Von Thnen). A third edition of his
book was published posthumously (Johann Heinrich Von Thnen).
J. H. Von Thnen is credited with creating the Von Thnen Model which was
published in the first volume of The Isolated Estate (Rossenberg). It used four
concentric zones surrounding a city to represent things that should be produced in
areas relative to the city in order to make it self-sufficient (Rossenberg). The model
states that dairying and demanding crops, such as vegetables and milk, would be
placed in the closest zone to the city because of their need to get to the markets quickly.
Then, the second zone would have the collection of firewood and timber for fuel and
building materials (Rossenberg). The laborious effort of transporting these materials
creates the need for them to be relatively close to the city.
The third zone would be crops that are less intensive, such as grains, than those
in the first (Rossenberg). The easy transport of these materials allows them to be
farther away from the city. The final zone is that which contains pastures of
domesticated animals (Rossenberg). Animals do not need to transported by cart like
crops and materials do, therefore they can still be efficiently placed farther away from
the city. In the span of Thunens life, which was before industrialization, these four
zones would theoretically create a self-sufficient city in which someone could live.



Works Cited

"Johann Heinrich von Thnen." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 28 Sep. 2014.

Rossenberg, Matt. "What Is the Von Thunen Model?" About. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.