A term denoting the entire complex of surface and near-surface attributes of the solid portions of the surface of the Earth which are significant to people. Water bodies occurring within landmasses are included with land. A specific area of the Earth's surface. Its characteristics embracing all reasonably stable, or predictably cyclic attributes of the biosphere directly above and below this area including those of the atmosphere and climate, the soil and underlying geology, the topography, the hydrology, the plant and animal populations, and the results of past and present human activity, to the extent that these attributes exert a significant influence on present and future uses of the land by people. It is all but the purely socioeconomic (human) attributes of the environment. It is assumed that all approaches to interpretative land classification would, to a varying extent, take additional socioeconomic factors into account but these are not considered to be attributes of the "land" itself. "Land" is a broader concept than soil. Within economic theory it is one of the major factors of production consisting of a good that is supplied by nature without the aid of people. The term may include not only the Earth's surface, both solid land and water, but also anything that is attached to the Earth's surface. Thus, all natural resources in their original state, such as mineral deposits, wildlife, timber, and fish are land; so are sources of energy, outside of people themselves, such as water, coal deposits, and the natural fertility of the soil.