Landscape Function Transformations with Relation to Land-Use Changes - Landscape Modelling: Geographical Space, Transformation and Future Scenarios - page 84

highways, railway main lines, higher care for the environment, etc. These changes
in agricultural and rural space were profound. The number of agricultural land users
during the totalitarian period was some hundreds of socialist farms. Land was owned
by the state and was given to cooperatives and state farms for their collective use.
Czechia has now, after an almost-finished process of restitution, some 3.5 million
land owners!
7.2 Case Study - Northwestern Part of Bohemia
We document typical changes in land use of different types of landscape in the
Czech-German border area (northwestern part of the Sudeten lands) from the
mid-Nineteenth century on three sample areas (Fig. 7.1). They are distinguished
by dissimilar natural conditions, economical-geographical location, and socio-
economic structure. This region of Czechia stretches along the border with Saxony,
and was populated mainly by Germans (over 90% of the total population) until the
middle of the Twentieth century. The state border was stable, but the ethnic bor-
der between the Czech and German population had been changing frequently. Since
the Thirteenth century, it had been changing to the disadvantage of Czechs, espe-
cially after the 30-years' war, when the loss in Czech population was compensated
for by a German-speaking population. Since then, the orientation of economic, cul-
tural and political ties has also been changing. The ties were much stronger with
cities in Saxony than with cities in the Czech inland (even after the emergence of
Czechoslovakia in the year 1918). Commonly, borderline cities with their mainly
Czech-German population were much richer than cities in the Czech inland with
their mainly Czech population. The distinctiveness of the Sudeten region is reflected,
among other things, in a different character of landscape, distinctive folk art and
architecture (cf. Raška, 2006; Oršulák, Raška, & Suchevic, 2007). For example,
Fig. 7.1 Study areas Bílina, Petrovice and Trebenice within the Northwestern part of Bohemia
(Czech Republic)