valleywhere

Valleywhere is a hypothetical geographic concept used in geoscience education and in speculative fiction to illustrate valley formation and ecosystem dynamics. The term was first adopted in academic textbooks in the early 2000s as a generic example of a river valley with a temperate climate. It is not a real place, but a construct to discuss processes rather than to identify a specific location.

The name combines “valley” with “where,” signaling its role as a referent for inquiry and location-based reasoning. In teaching, valleywhere helps students compare valley types, such as V-shaped, U-shaped, and river valleys, and explore the effects of erosion, tectonics, and glacial history.

A typical valleywhere scenario features a broader valley floor with a perennial stream, surrounded by gradually rising hills or mountains. Depending on climate, vegetation ranges from deciduous forests to coniferous belts, with wildlife commonly described as deer, small mammals, birds, and fish in the valley stream. The model emphasizes microclimates and the gradient from valley floor to rim.

In education and media, valleywhere is used for mapping exercises, watershed analysis, and land-use planning examples. In fiction and world-building, it serves as a plausible setting for stories exploring settlement patterns, resource competition, and climate variability. GIS datasets sometimes include valleywhere as a placeholder name for lab exercises or demonstration layers.