The economist has to choose a definition of landscape which meets the requirements of social sciences. Three definitions are available : the scientific definition, the psychological definition and the phenomenological one (Section 1). The last definition appears to be the most adequate. It allows to study the landscape-individuals relation and to show that there exists a market management of landscape based on the trade of private property rights on the land and on the individual choices of localization (Section 2). But the market management is not always possible (insolvency and exhaustion) and that gives rise to a protection demand on the political market.
