Cultural landscape is changing all the time according to changing socio-economic conditions as driving forces of land use and landscape structure changes. The speed of changes occurring in the Czech rural landscape has accelerated significantly in the past 50 years. In the 1990s the new significant trends in the Czech landscape evolution are recorded. Afforestation, grassing and abandoning of agricultural lands on poor soils in marginal regions correspond to the general trends of the development in European rural landscapes. Because of great regional differences, detailed land use changes have been investigated in several cadastral areas representing characteristic types of the Czech rural landscape. Land use changes are traced by a simple method comparing the present state of the landscape with the situation registered on aerial photographs and maps from the year 1990. The authors are aware of the fact the presented nominal values identifying the present land use changes and coming from a limited number of cadastres cannot be overvalued. However the first results support cogently the trend of important land use changes and their remarkable regional differences according to natural conditions. The decrease of arable land area on less fertile soils and in worse climatic conditions opens a space for an improvement of polyfunctionality of the rural landscape.