The purpose of the paper was to point out the significance of the discussion about the character of historical geography, its form and future development. What is, or what should be, the subject matter of historical-geographic research? As far as the present state of historical geography is concerned, we can find the following deficiencies: 1) unexplained status somewhere between historiography and geography, or the subject matter and object of research; 2) unexplained purpose and target of historical geographic research; 3) fragmentation of research and weak internal integrity of the field; 4) very descriptive character of research hardly focused on explaining and searching for regularities (rules); 5) low applicability of research results. With regard to the aforementioned issues, the author came up with several statements regarding future development of historical geography: 1) Historical geography is mostly geography, geographical science. 2) Even though it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish between historical geography and other geographical disciplines, its undisputable contribution is the fact that similarly as history it becomes a bridge between our past and presence. 3) Historical geography should emphasize space, rather than time, it is mostly about geographical organisation of landscape in the given period, i.e. a space-time science. On the other hand historiography which focuses on linear development in time and on chronology is (more of a time-space science. 4) Nomothetically oriented historical geography should research the state and development, causes and mechanisms of landscape changes or changes of its individual components during a certain period in the past. 5) It is necessary to initiate a broader discussion about the understanding of time and history in historical geography. It is necessary to try to define more clearly its subject matter and topic of research. 6) The purpose of historical geography is not to describe and explain the development of selected landscape features in time by means of a retrospective method. Its purpose is to understand the complexity and function of past landscape, landscape spheres. Only such historical geography can become a real geography of the past. 7) The above-described understanding of historical geography would also enable us to apply historical-geographic knowledge.
We focused on the basic aspects of settlement desertion in Bohemian borderland after 1945 in our study. With regard to the absence of sufficiently detailed sources, we focused only on some settlements existing as of 01/12/1930. We defined two basic periods of settlement desertion. Settlements were deserted in various places and for various reasons during these periods. Approximately by the mid-1960s mostly small and insignificant settlements were deserted. These were either located at higher and inaccessible places close to the border or in newly established military districts. Towards the end of the 1960s the number of deserted settlements was reduced significantly and never was so large again. During these later periods deserted settlements were mostly located in lowlands and river basins which resulted from coal mining development and industrial activities. This tendency peaked in the 1970s and 1980s when also large and more significant settlements were deserted in the above specified areas. Changes in the settlement structure resulted neither from the border distance nor from preferences of inhabitants, but from the distribution of certain natural resources. Desertion of settlement does not only change physical structures in the given location, but it completely and extremely changes its features and its relations with other landscape components. We cannot support the statement that in future no settlements will be deserted, even though as far as some significant settlements are concerned we can nearly rule this possibility out. With regard to the current intensity of Czech settlement area utilisation, we cannot expect significant settlements to be deserted for any other reason than short-time - as far as the settlement development is concerned - power decisions. We can assume that less significant settlements are deserted in consequence of settlement development and its permanent restructuring. These settlements are located either in less exposed areas where changes are slow, or on the other hand, in exposed areas with high intensity of changes. In the first case the changes connected with desertion of a settlement are very slow and usually not perceived by people and in the second case intense changes are considered a part of the natural development in the area.
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