Cultural landscape of the 21st century : Geographical consideration between theory and practice

Abstract

The simplest definition of landscape describes it as the physiognomy of the geographical environment. The notion cultural landscape refers to landscape that has been transformed by Man as the result of civilizational development. Cultural landscapes are extremely dynamic and ephemeral systems. Currently, we are witnessing dramatic transformation of the landscape. The processes of consumption and globalization of the landscape are happening on a mass scale in the 21st century. Many of the factors that cause these rapid changes are within the scope of interest of geography; these include analyses of the impact on the environment of mass tourism, transport, fragmentation of the space resulting from growing areas of settlements and service sites, restructuring of industry, etc. The issues discussed in the paper include: factors of landscape transformation, diversification of European landscapes in selected regions and assessment of their condition, analysis of contemporary threats to the quality of European landscapes and directions of their transformation.