ABSTRACT In the half century since it was published Köppen's climatic classification of 1918 and its revised forms have been widely used. Its popularity shows no decline, but current expositions pay insufficient attention to Köppen's own statements about its origins, aims, and methods. To treat the classification as a complete and mysterious compendium of rules of procedure is to lose most of the value which its use offers. Users who apply it at scales for which it was not devised cannot fairly accuse Köppen of failure. Those who expect close correspondence between natural vegetation and Köppen's boundaries (or any others so simply defined) are naive. Those who reject non-genetic classification as less than scientific seek to impose rules which other sciences do not recognize.
Arthur A. Wilcock (Fri,) studied this question.