Geografie 2025, 130, 415-443
The perception of historical and present-day regional boundaries by the society of Czechia
, Jitka Močičková2, Aleš Vyskočil2, Jiří Pánek1
1Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Geomatics, Prague, Czechia
2Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Brno, Czechia
Received June 2025
Accepted November 2025
The study addresses the question: How does contemporary Czech society perceive historical and present-day boundaries, and what role do these perceptions play in shaping regional identity? Using mental and participatory mapping, the authors analyse how today’s inhabitants of Czechia perceive geographical space through boundaries defined by historical, cultural, administrative, and subjective factors. The research is based on a large-scale questionnaire survey and employs geographic information system (GIS) tools. Particular attention is paid to generational differences, educational and regional backgrounds, and how regional identity is reflected in respondents’ mental maps. The study integrates approaches from the humanities, social sciences, and technical disciplines, offering an interdisciplinary framework for analysing boundaries in space. The findings demonstrate that while some boundary perceptions remain deeply rooted in history, others are shaped by contemporary socio-cultural influences. The combined methodological approach of participatory mapping and historical contextualization provides new insights into evolving boundary perceptions and contributes to the theoretical development of spatial identity studies.
Keywords
cognitive mapping, participatory mapping, boundary perception, regional identity, historical geography, Czechia.
Funding
This research was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic under the NAKI III Programme for Applied Research in National and Cultural Identity (2023−2030), within the framework of the project Borders as a Cultural-Historical Phenomenon: Specification, Analysis, Comparison and Interpretation (Grant No. DH23P03OVV030).
