EN
The term development of societies means, to our understanding, aiming at economic growth and material prosperity, socio-economic equality as well as political democracy. The facts quoted above are not isolated. The achievements in the field of development have not been given the experience of all the nations to the same degree. Additionally, as the situation in this field has been changing over the time, the differences in the level of development achieved by particular countries have become significant. This fact has created great opportunity for the researchers looking for the answer regarding possible regularity in this field and how it is governed. The article shows achievements of many countries in the area of development in 2007 and two main factors of this development, natural resources and economic system. It seems that the knowledge of the conditioning of development and understanding of this process is growing. However, neither popularizing the phenomenon nor diminishing the development disproportions has been achieved. Therefore, further studies on the essence of development are undeniably purposeful.