Slovenia boasts a great diversity of all natural factors. As a result, many different types of cultural landscape have developed in Slovenia's very small area. The aims of this book are to obtain a comprehensive picture of Slovenia's cultural landscapes~to define and assess their elements, relationships, and the correlations between them~to make an historical survey of landscape shaping~and to delineate and analyze current processes and trends that are changing the rural landscapes faster than ever before. An important part of the book is to classify landscapes at the national level. The classification model is based on a hierarchical concept with eight levels of division. More than 300 variations were defined at the lowest level, and by using a synthesis approach, twenty typological groups were created. Later, nine case studies were analyzed to determine which elements, physical and human, were of vital importance for the examined landscape types. The results show the importance of natural elements, particularly in less favourable areas. Natural elements have direct and indirect impacts on the human elements, but the importance of political and administrative decisions are also significant.

This book is included in DOAB.