A Comparison of Land Use Classifications in Urbanized Areas in Selected European Countries

The real estate cadastre is the primary source of information on land use. It re cords information related to the division of land into types based on the actual way of land use or development. The distinguished types of land use depend on many geographical factors, as well as historical and economic conditions. The study presents a comparison of the detail of land use classification registered in the real estate cadastre in areas functionally related to the urban areas of 9 European countries: Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Germany and Poland. The research concerned the determination of the degree to which the classification of land use in urbanized areas is detailed, whether the studied European countries are characterized by the same number of distinguished classes of ob jects at different levels of detail, and what percentage are the distinguished classes of land use objects in urbanized areas in relation to all of the distinguished classes of objects land use at different levels of detail of classification. The study used legal acts regulating land use issues which have been made available in national languages by government institutions.