Abstract. The main dynamics that shaped the evolution of the forest surfaces between 1990 and 2012, in the county of Iaşi, are related to the legislative context and to the territorial reforms that affected the district limits. Analyzing these mechanisms in a geographical context shows that these trends are also related to the spatial frame. This study emphasizes that moderate negative coefficients of spatial and territorial autocorrelation can also describe these trends, suggesting that these evolutions are rather chaotic at local scale. This aspect makes us suspect that the loss of forest surfaces in each district is not only dependent on the economic, social and legislative context of the transition period, it is also subject to geographical factors. Analyzing these factors is the main intention of our study because they can provide us a better understanding of the extremely complicated frame of forest dynamics in the study area.