This article seeks to contribute to discussion concerning the concept of countryside in geographical sciences. In the first section it discusses selected approaches for assessing rural areas and presents key stimulants from the new regional and cultural geography (rural areas as a socio-spatial process and as living space). The second section presents examples of empirical findings from a field survey, the respondents to which were mayors of rural municipalities – with up to 3,000 inhabitants – in Czechia. We empirically explore the truthfulness of a thesis concerning the existence of several distinct types of rural areas in Czechia: rural areas with differing development potential and diverse problems, calling for the use of different instruments in overcoming the problems in question. The results of the survey make it possible to assess the territorial differences of so-called soft factors of ruralmunicipality development (perceptions regarding rural areas, inhabitants’ relationship to the territory of their municipality, local pride, the conditions and indicators of a successful municipality).

The continuing European recession underlines the urgency of the unemployment and labour force mobility issue. Therefore, the objective of this study is to scrutinise the relationship between changes in unemployment rate and transport indicators in the intercensal period 2001--2011. Both primary and secondary data are used in the analysis. Rate of car ownership and commuting data were taken from national censuses in 2001 and 2011 which surrounded the 2008 crisis. Primary data came from 1,023 interviews. The relationships among indicators are identified with the help of several statistical techniques whose results are analysed. Further, analyses have confirmed the dominant importance of passenger car ownership and car use in relation to decreased unemployment. It is particularly important in economically weaker areas with a poor access, that are endangered by social exclusions. Furthermore, it is necessary to emphasise the importance of public transport as a means of preventing social exclusion.

The paper focuses on the impacts of the general education curriculum reform that has placed the pupils’ skills in the foreground of interest. Map skills are one of the most important groups of geographical skills. A test of map skills was drawn up in order to evaluate the level of map skills among pupils aged 11, 15 and 18. Its implementation proved, among others, the elementary assumption that map skills develop along with pupils’ growing age. It was also proven that Czech pupils primarily master cognitively less demanding operations with maps such as location of objects in the map, while more difficult uses associated with map reading and analysis of information posed rather serious problems to them. Statistical figures showed that girls faced the problems significantly more often than boys. Last but not least, it was proven that pupils have not acquired map skills on such a level as prescribed by the curriculum for a given educational level.

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This article addresses the analysis of theoretical and methodological concepts of the quality of human and social capital and their relation to the theory of spatial polarisation. Selected conditions for the development of human and social capital and their territorial differentiation in Czechia are evaluated. On the basis of an evaluation of component indicators of human capital (the ratio of university educated residents in the population over 15 years of age as well as an economic burden index) and social capital (voter participation in municipal elections and the number of candidates divided by the number of offices to be filled in the 2006 municipal elections) problematic areas are identified at a micro-regional level (the network of municipalities having a certified municipal authority).

This article analyzes the impact of the arrival of immigrants to Catalan rural areas from a gender perspective. We specifically observed the female migration routes to municipalities experiencing problems in ensuring the reproduction of their communities (depopulation, masculinization, aging, singleness, economic marginality), and suggest that these women make a remarkable contribution to their development and the revival of some of the human capital and labor lost in the process of decline that has characterized rural areas throughout the twentieth century. We noted the demographic trends and characteristics of immigration to rural areas, together with their migratory routes, expectations and the distinguishing factors of their incorporation into such a specific social, economic and cultural environment. Unlike male immigrants to these areas, who are usually employed in the primary sector, women work mainly in the service sector (hotels and tourism), in the agro-processing industry and above all, in work related to the reproductive sphere: care and attention of the aging population who because of the rural exodus, frequently lack either the family or institutional context to meet their care needs. We understand that the foreign women help to re-feminize these communities and become essential economic and social agents.

The issue of regionalization is one of the repeatedly discussed topics of geographical study. Results of socio-geographic regionalization are very important in terms of both cognition and application. In the former case, one has to stress their synthetic character and relevant description of geographical arrangement of their social phenomena, relations and circumstances. In the latter case, there is the utilization of results of regionalization for the drafting of regional policy when regulating and supporting the creation of labour markets, territorial administration, etc. The study is based on an analysis of relations between inhabitants and economic activities. The information collected by censuses, especially on commuting to work and school, is of crucial importance. When it comes to methodology, the regionalization relating to 2011 is similar to the forms of regionalization delineated earlier (as of 1970, 1980, 1991 and 2001). Thanks to this, one can make comparisons of development and determine substantial tendencies in regional organization of society within Czechia.

This article explores regional differences in the social capital of peripheral areas in Czechia. Its objective is to make a general contribution to studies of social and human capital and to the clarification of the role of such capital in the polarisation of space. Specifically, the article builds on previous quantitative analyses of differences in human and social capital in Czechia by presenting analyses of selected results from an extensive empirical study, carried out in typologically different peripheral micro-regions in Czechia. Emphasis is given to an analysis of problems concerning residents’ level of participation in groups, according to a given region’s scale-level, residents’ trust in selected subjects (individuals, entities and institutions) and the overall satisfaction of residents with life in a given municipality. In terms of territorial differentiation, attention is focused on an analysis of differences in the quality of social capital in Czechia’s inner and external peripheries, in other words, in areas of continuous settlement and in border regions that were settled after the removal of the German speaking population.