Places said to have a strong" sense of place" have a strong identity and character that is deeply felt by local inhabitants and by many visitors

Sense of place is a social phenomenon that exists independently of any one individual's perceptions or experiences, yet is dependent on human engagement for its existence. Such a feeling maybe derived from the natural environment, but is more often made up of a mix of natural and cultural features in the landscape, and generally includes the people who occupy the place

The National Trust for Historic Preservation offers a straightforward approach, calling sense of place:

Those things that ass up to a feeling that a community is a special place, distinct form anywhere else.

Kent Ryden provides a more textured response that recognizes the necessity of inhabiting place:

A sense of place results gradually and unconsciously from inhabiting a landscape over
time, becoming familiar with its physical properties, accruing history within its confines

Finally, the well-known geographer J.B Jackson offers this elaboration :

It is place, permanent position in both the social and topographical sense, that gives us our identity

Places that lack a "sense of place" are sometimes referred to as "placeless" or "inauthentic". Placeless landscapes are those that have no special relationship to the places in which they are located- they could be anywhere.

For example,
- Roadside strip shopping malls, gas/petrol stations and convenience stores, fast food chain, and chain department stores are often citied as example of placeless landscape elements

-Even some historic sites or districts that have been heavily commercialized(commodified) for tourism and new housing estates are sometimes defined as having lost their sense of place