Differentiation of Czech countryside in light of the OECD typology

This study deals with the differentiation of Czech countryside in its relation to the delineation of countryside itself. Ongoing changes in the countryside bring about its increased differentiation. This trend also applies to Czech countryside, which can be characterized as highly differentiated. This implies a need to delineate countryside itself, as well as its individual types. The delineation of countryside is a long term focus of the OECD, whose methodology is employed in this study. Its scale, however, has been adjusted to the level of districts (LAU 1). This study attempts to shed some light on the existing differentiation and diversity of the Czech countryside. For the individual categories of the OECD typology, we observed selected socio-economic indicators (net migration, primary sector employment, educational structure and unemployment rate) and analysed the differentiation of these characteristics across the sets of municipalities. The observation clearly indicates that small municipalities in rural regions display worse socio-economic characteristics. In terms of the selected indicators, the analysis also reveals a significant differentiation caused by the regions’ geographic position.