Geografie 2010, 115, 413-439
Land use changes in the hinterland of major Slovak cities
The countryside around major Slovak cities is undergoing significant transformation. The construction of shopping centres, administrative buildings, logistical sites, residential areas and changes in the agricultural use of land are causing vast changes in land use (land cover). The objective of this paper is to examine changes in the spatial structure of land use in the hinterland of 11 Slovak cities, with more than 50 thousand inhabitants, during the period from 2000 to 2008. On the basis of a detailed comparison of data obtained from the Aggregated Areas of Land Types database (Úhrnné hodnoty druhov pozemkov) we analyzed changes in land use in 847 municipalities within the Functional Urban Regions of Bratislava, Košice, Prešov, Nitra, Žilina, Banská Bystrica, Trnava, Trenčín, Poprad and Prievidza. The results of the research confirmed significantly differentiated changes in land use. Whereas in the capital of Bratislava changes in land use are primarily caused by suburbanization, creating a relatively compact suburban zone, changes in land use were recorded only in selected sites in the rest of these major Slovak cities.
