Summary:

Current approaches to cultural landscapes are more and more often em-phasising that these landscapes should be protected not only because they embrace objects of historical and environmental value, but also due to their potential for local and regional development. Cultural landscapes have influence on tourism attractiveness. The paper presents examples of cultural landscapes in Poland and abroad that have been shaped to become tourist products supporting local and re-gional development. It particularly demonstrates the way rural space could be de-veloped to create tourist and recreation areas taking into consideration local cultural potential as well as possibilities of social and economic growth. What is particularly important in the development of tourist and recreation areas is active participation of local communities and possibilities of cooperation between many institutions.
Space could be shaped based on local authenticity values and also in relation to environmental, cultural and social conditions. Particular attention should be drawn to those elements of cultural landscape, which are seen as the dominant factors shaping the perception of a particular landscape, region or country