Abstrakt
The removal of the Iron Curtain on the western border of Czechia in 1990 created basic conditions for the movement of people in both directions, for cross-border cooperation of neighbouring regions and after 2000 gradually also for the business on "the other side" of the border. These changes in the functions of border regions triggered their economic development.
Eventually, there were land-use changes in the border landscape straddling the Iron Curtain. Along with the transport of Czech Germans (about 3 million people) between 1945 and 1946, these changes attracted the attention of our research team to study the transformation of the borderland.
Based on an overview of our previous and new studies the aim of this publication is to describe the specifics in land use change of unique area of border regions in Czechia affected by several distinctive driving forces in the last two centuries, and mainly in the post-war and post-communist periods.