On March 29 2013, "The Centennial Seminar of Huang Bingwei's Academic Thoughts" was held by the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research and Geographical Society of China to commemorate the 100th birthday of Academician Huang Bingwei. At the meeting, a number of experts, including Academicians of CAS and CAE, and Huang's colleagues and students, looked back at his contribution to the development of geography in China in the latter half of the 20th century. Huang's academic contributions included but not limited to promoting the division and formation of physio-geographical sub-disciplines, directing the development of integrated physical geography, strengthening and widening the applicable fields of physical geography, guiding the way for geography to participate in the construction of earth system science. In future, promoting his study style and academic thoughts will be helpful for the development and innovation of geography.

Academician Huang Bingwei, as an outstanding geographer, devoted his whole life to the research on integrated physical geography. He had made major progress in the fields of physio-geographical regionalization in China, natural potentiality in agricultural production, global environmental change, earth system science and regional sustainable development. Meanwhile, he realized that there were several weaknesses and shortcomings in geographical studies and promoted the reformation of geography. The new ways proposed by Academician Huang in the physical geography profoundly influenced the development of geography in China.

Academician Huang Bingwei is worthy of the title of the master in geography. As a widely respected scholar, he has a wide range of knowledge, agile thinking, broad and unique perspective, and thus made great contribution to the development of geography in China, especially for the physical geography. This paper discusses the academic thoughts of Academician Huang from four aspects: (1) promoting the development of integrated physical geography; (2) innovating to the physio-geographical regionalization in China; (3) advocating the research on physio-geographical processes and the related mechanisms; (4) seeking truth from facts and rigorous scholarship research.