Terraced Landscapes

Terraced landscapes with agricultural terraces are cultural landscapes with a special value. They provide food and also have priceless scientific, cultural, historical. ecological, aesthetic, and even psychological, philosophical, and religious value. They form a unique agricultural and ecological system that can be found throughout the world. In some developed civilizations they were created in an organized manner over millennia, and in others they arose completely spontaneously as people adapted to natural conditions and improved their opportunities to make a living. They therefore reflect a harmony between man and nature, and in many cases also between people themselves.

This volume presents them in pictures and words in all their diversity and attractiveness. After discussing the global and European dimensions of terraced landscapes and their agricultural terraces, the volume focuses on Slovenian terraced landscapes; they are discussed separately by landscape types and sample cases in the territory of selected settlements (pilot areas). The conclusion also draws attention to the exceptional value and appeal of non-agricultural terraced landscapes that have been shaped by nature and man.