Geographia Polonica 2015, Volume 88, Issue 3, pp. 519-530 http://dx.doi.org/10.7163/GPol.0032 INSTITUTE OF GEOGRAPHY AND SPATIAL ORGANIZATION POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES www.igipz.pan.pl www.geographiapolonica.pl Introduction Long-term studies of land ownership transfor- mations are very rarely spatially explicit. This is because obtaining and processing detailed archival cartographic data is complicated and time consuming. This applies in particular to landscape-scale studies, where the amount of data is often overwhelming. However, this is the only way to reveal trajectories of own- ership changes over centuries for a certain piece of land. The analysis of aggregated census data, which is fast and quite common, provides only knowledge of net percentage SPATIALLY EXPLICIT CHANGES IN LAND OWNERSHIP THROUGH 3 SOCIO-POLITICAL SYSTEMS: A CASE STUDY FROM SOUTHEAST POLAND Andrzej Affek Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences Twarda 51/55, 00-818 Warsaw: Poland e-mail: a.affek@twarda.pan.pl Abstract Spatially explicit analysis of land ownership changes can provide a unique opportunity to trace land ownership and determine spatial patterns of inheritance. In this paper, the structure of land ownership in the age of feu- dalism (1852), communism (1965) and capitalism (2008) was reconstructed for a landscape-scale study area – the Upper Wiar River Basin in the Polish Eastern Carpathians. Austrian cadastre and post-war land registers were used as source data. Trajectories of land ownership changes were mapped and discussed. The similarity of landowner types was determined by means of correspondence analysis. The results generally showed how highly unstable land ownership is when socio-political systems are in flux. Key words Austrian cadastre • land register • trajectories of landowners • feudalism • communism • capital- ism • Upper Wiar River Basin VARIA: POLAND ON MAPS