Long-term land-use changes: A comparison between Czechia and Slovenia

Abstract

Detailed information about land use is available from the mid-nineteenth century onward for the countries of the former Habsburg Monarchy. For Slovenia and Czechia, databases have been created that make it possible to analyze the period from the first half of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. The processes of changing land use were comparable during the period examined. Nonetheless, the cultural landscape in Czechia was significantly more transformed. Because of the nationalization of land after the Second World War and the establishment of state-owned collective farms and cooperatives, today large complexes of farmland predominate, whereas in Slovenia fragmented properties still predominate, and the cultural landscape therefore preserves many more elements from the nineteenth century.