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Extreme diff erences in agricultural holding size, existing not only among the countries within the EU as a whole but also within the farm structures of the individual countries, create a considerable uncertainty for establishing the optimal political and economic instruments to support sustainable rural development. Th e study explores the determinants infl uencing the spatial volatility of agricultural holding size at both the EU scale and the national scale of the Czech Republic, the latter of which has the largest mean agricultural holding size in the EU. While some factors are identical for both the EU and the Czech Republic, other eff ects can only be evaluated at the European or international scale, and still others can be evaluated only at the national scale. Th e only factor found in this study to be signifi cantly associated with the agricultural holding size on the European scale was the wheat production. On the Czech national scale, land consolidation, unemployment rate, and soil fertility were signifi cantly associated with the agricultural holding size. Th e study found that in the Czech Republic, the number of farms was increasing, while at the same time the agricultural holding sizes were decreasing. Th is is an opposite trend in comparison to the EU as a whole, where the number of farms is diminishing and the sizes increasing.

Land tenure is generally considered to be an important factor affecting farming, landscape, and rural development. This paper reviews selected case studies to identify how land tenure influences agricultural landscape changes in Europe. We identified how land tenure information was transformed into variables, grouping these variables into general thematic categories: (1) land rights variables based on references to the type of stakeholders and duration of land occupancy, (2) land structure variables describing general land structure, and (3) behavioural variables dependent on stakeholders’ attitudes, perceptions, and personal values. Each thematic category can be defined on three spatial levels: parcel or production block, stakeholder, and landscape. The results show that the tenure factor is not frequently included into landscape-change studies. When a land tenure factor was part of a given study, it either played a minor role among other drivers of landscape change or, if it influenced significant landscape changes, it had only locally specific effects. Moreover, there were studies with contradictory results and so it is difficult to generalize specific findings. Nevertheless, land tenure is frequently discussed within landscape-change research in relation to land abandonment as well as green services and their connection with the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy.