A systematic approach in relation to the study of the sustainability of the development of individual territories is expressed in the fact that they are considered, on the one hand, as a separate segment that has all the institutional, economic, social and environmental characteristics, functioning as a whole of constituent elements (municipalities, individual economic entities ). On the other hand, this separate territory is considered as an integral element of a meso or macrosystem (depending on the administrative-territorial nature of the territory under study), which functions according to general rules and directions of development, conditioned by a single goal-setting and functionality of the national system. In accordance with the definition of the subject of our study (sustainable development of mountainous territories), we determined that mountainous areas with specific development conditions are separate territorial entities with their own internally formed functioning conditions. On the other hand, not a single subject of the Russian Federation can currently be fully classified as “mountainous territories”, that is, it must be considered taking into account the general principles of sustainable socio-economic development.

At the moment, the mountainous territories of the Russian Federation, whose area occupies a significant part of the country, are not endowed with a special status in terms of institutional understanding of their specific features and conditions for socio-economic development. The conflict lies in the fact that, on the one hand, mountainous areas are part of a subject that has all the regulatory and legal powers regarding the formation of a strategic development plan, and on the other hand, the lack of a normatively fixed interpretation of the features of mountainous areas does not allow special conditions for the formation of special indicators their development. In this regard, the development of the author’s vision for the definition of “sustainable development” of mountain territories is a necessary condition for further improvement of the process of strategic management at the regional level.