Summary:

A concept of multifunctional rural development cannot be identified exclusively with creating new jobs. Multifunctional character is a wider notion including among others local development, entrepreneurship, long-term planning, diversification of agriculture and improvement of demographic resources. Problems of multifunctional rural development must be therefore treated as a complex issue. The work presents results of research on diversification of multifunctional rural development in the świętokrzyskie province conducted in 97 communes.
The level of multifunctional development of the studied objects was presented as a synthetic index of development established by Hellwig, computed on the basis of 15 variables characterizing multifunctional character. The value of computed synthetic index fell within the range of 0.3055 (Masłów commune) and -0.0155 (Blizyn commune). It must be mentioned that the index has been construed in such a way that it value is between 0 and 1. In some cases, e.g. a considerable difference in development of some objects, its value may assume values less than 0.
A classification of the studied communes was also made due to the level of their multifunctional character. The first class of communes with the highest level of multifunctional development includes 10 communes, the second class with medium development level - 36 communes and the third class - representing low level of multifunctional character covers 38 communes, whereas the fourth class where the level of multifunctional character is the lowest contains 13 objects.
An analysis of spatial distributions of communes was also conducted. It was found that communes with the highest level of multifunctional development are situated along the main transport routes and in the vicinity of large cities and industrial centres.