Regional Formation and Development Studies

The temporal and spatial changes of land use are important while studying the rural landscapes on both the regional-geographical and environmental scales. In the Baltic Sea region with nine countries (including Russian Federation, represented by Kaliningrad oblast, the utilised agricultural land (UAL) makes about 34 % of total region area on the average. The current research revealed the trends of different shrinking rate of UAL in nine studied countries from 1993 to 2008: it varied within the range between 3 % in Denmark and 43 % in Estonia. Research focus was given to the changes in ratio between arable land and area under meadows and pastures: it increased from 6.5 to 10.9 during 15 years period (1993–2008) on the average, that shows the increase in land use and farming intensity even the UAL area was shrunk.