County Seat Research Articles

An Error in Chemistry

An Error in Chemistry William Faulkner and John N. Duvall (bio) It was Joel Flint himself who telephoned the sheriff that he had killed his wife. And when the sheriff and his deputy reached the scene, drove the twenty-odd miles into the remote back-country region where old Wesley Pritchel lived, Joel Flint himself met them at the door and asked them in. He was the foreigner, the outlander, the Yankee who had come into our county two years ago as the operator of a pitch—a lighted booth where a roulette wheel spun against a bank of nickel-plated pistols and razors and watches and harmonicas—in a travelling street carnival and who when the carnival departed had remained, and two months later was married to Pritchel's only living child: the dim-witted spinster of almost forty, who until then had shared her irascible and violent-tempered father's almost hermit-existence on the good though small farm which he owned. But even after the marriage, old Pritchel still seemed to draw the line against his son-in-law. He built a new small house for them two miles from his own, where the daughter was presently raising chickens for the market. According to rumor old Pritchel, who hardly ever went anywhere anyway, had never once entered the new house, so that he saw even this last remaining child only once a week. This would be when she and her husband would drive each Sunday in the second-hand truck in which the son-in-law marketed the chickens, to take Sunday dinner with old Pritchel in the old house where Pritchel now did his [end ts 1] own cooking and housework. In fact, the neighbors said the only reason he allowed the son-in-law to enter his house even then was so that his daughter could prepare him a decent hot meal once a week. So for the next two years, occasionally in Jefferson, the county seat, but more frequently in the little cross-roads hamlet near his home, the son-in-law would be seen and heard too. He1 was a man in the middle forties, [End Page 7] neither short nor tall nor thin nor stout (in fact, he and his father-in-law could easily have cast that same shadow which later for a short time they did), with a cold, contemptuous intelligent face and a voice lazy with anecdote of the teeming outland which his listeners had never seen;—a dweller among the cities, though never from his own accounting long resident in any one of them, who within the first three months of his residence among them2 had impressed upon the people whose way of life he had assumed, one definite personal habit by which he presently became known throughout the whole county, even by men who had never seen him. This was a harsh and contemptuous derogation, sometimes without even provocation or reason or opportunity, of our local southern custom of drinking whiskey by mixing sugar and water with it. He called it effeminacy, a pap for children, himself drinking even our harsh, violent, illicit and unaged homemade corn whiskey without even a sip of water to follow it. Then on this last Sunday morning he telephoned the sheriff that he had killed his wife and met the officers at his father-in-law's door and said: 'I have already carried [end ts 2] her into the house. So you wont need to waste breath telling me I shouldn't have touched her until you got here.' 'I reckon it was all right to take her up out of the dirt,' the sheriff said. 'It was an accident, I believe you said.' 'Then you believe wrong,' Flint said. 'I said I killed her.' And that was all.3 The sheriff brought him to Jefferson and locked4 him in a cell in the jail. And that evening after supper the sheriff came through the side door into the study where Uncle Gavin was supervising me in the drawing of a brief. Uncle Gavin was only county, not District, attorney. But he and the sheriff, who had...

From Village to City: Social Transformation in a Chinese County Seat by Andrew B. Kipnis

From Village to City: Social Transformation in a Chinese County Seat by Andrew B. Kipnis

These Rugged Days: Alabama in the Civil War by John S. Sledge

Reviewed by: These Rugged Days: Alabama in the Civil War by John S. Sledge Alabama Tuscaloosa These Rugged Days: Alabama in the Civil War. By John S. Sledge. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2017. xxiii, 255 pp. $34.95. ISBN 978-0-8173-1960-1. This is yet another book on the Alabama experience in the Civil War, but it is written by John Sledge, a born storyteller so talented as a writer that he could probably transform the Mobile telephone directory into moving literature. And no doubt to the delight of his many fans, it is an unabashed and sometimes romantic homage to Alabamians who fought for the Confederacy and those civilians who supported them and the Lost Cause. Sledge makes this goal clear at the very end of the book when he insists that "we owe it to ourselves and our heirs never to forget the remarkable men and women who endured those rugged days ever so long ago" (212). The dust jacket includes a blurb touting the book as a "fresh look at the Civil War in Alabama that thoroughly covers the topic," but unfortunately, it offers little in the way of new information, and its scope is so narrow that professional historians and close students of this period will quickly spot some significant omissions. For example, although Sledge acknowledges that the conflict was all about "Northern meddling on the slavery question" (28), he does not attempt to explain why secession or war was seen by any Alabamian as a necessary cure for the growing hostility to slavery. Like other books of this type, the role of dissidents—Unionists—is minimized to a few brief snippets (1, 40, 43, 47, 58, 81, 101, 149). Presumably, Sledge intends his pointed disdain for "politics and Unionism" (xxii) to excuse this, forgetting the essence of Carl Von Clausewitz's famous axiom from over a century ago that war is simply a continuation of politics by other means. Politics and war are inseparable and [End Page 58] any discussion of war should include the military battles as well as the political battles, of which there were many during the Civil War in Alabama. Thus, although Sledge rightly concludes at one point that "context is everything" (212), the relevant context is mostly written out of the story (there is no mention of white Alabamians fighting in the Union army), or papered over with specious assertions like "the martial spirit was triumphant all over Alabama" (32). Left out of the discussion of unity of sentiment in Alabama is any deliberation on the Confederacy's early resort to conscription as the only means to fill out its armies, or of the existence of Alabama draft dodgers. Brief allusions are occasionally made to deserters (74, 81, 124, 207), but there is no discussion regarding the reasons for, or frequency of, desertion among troops from Alabama. Along these same lines, there is no mention of the mutiny of Alabama troops in Brigadier General James Holt Clanton's brigade in early 1864, and very little about the effect of inflation, taxes, impressment, and food shortages on the morale of Alabama soldiers or their families (77-79). These were among the reasons why the days about which Sledge writes were "rugged." There are also some factual errors, most of which are minor. Selma, rather than Cahaba, is said to have been the "Dallas County seat" (122). Centreville is misspelled "Centerville" (156). Sledge contends that an expected benefit of Union general Lovell Rousseau's raid in July 1864 during William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign was to "pull Confederate [general] Nathan Bedford Forrest out of Middle Tennessee, where he was playing hell with Union communications" (106), despite the fact that Forrest was not engaged in that activity there at all in 1864 until September, after this raid and the evacuation of Atlanta. Confederate general John Bell Hood is said to have evacuated the "Georgia capital" on September 2, 1864, when he actually evacuated Atlanta (144) and not Milledgeville, the antebellum and wartime capital. Mississippi and middle Georgia are considered "relatively untouched" by war by 1865, when those states were actually the scene of far more battles than Alabama (146...

KOL Research in the Field of Self-governments of Csongrád County

Research into legal consciousness does not only constitute support for the individual but also for society in order to promote greater knowledge and understanding of a legal system, the daily round of relations and choices regulated by law and eventually self-knowledge. Applying this to the scope of research of this study, the research into legal consciousness in the field of local self-governments regarding the county seat of Csongrád County, the inhabitants of Szeged and the personnel at the local government serves as a feedback to both the inhabitants of Szeged and the local government and as an intermediary of mutual understanding for purer legal consciousness and the creation of the ideal of good self-governance. Emphasising the significance of research into legal consciousness and revealing important details of empirical research, this study highlights social phenomena the recognition and redress of which may assist in the sustainability and efficiency of both good self-governance and good governance.

From Village to City: Social Transformation in a Chinese County Seat, by Andrew B. Kipnis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016. xii+263 pp. US$70.00/£59.00 (cloth), US$29.95/£25.00 (paper).

<i>From Village to City: Social Transformation in a Chinese County Seat</i>, by Andrew B. Kipnis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016. xii+263 pp. US$70.00/£59.00 (cloth), US$29.95/£25.00 (paper).

“Rollin’ on the River”: what economic and political factors caused restoration of service for the Gee’s Bend public ferry?

This article presents a case study on the efforts to reestablish ferry service for an isolated island-type community in Wilcox County, Alabama, known as Gee’s Bend or by the formal name of Boykin. Gee’s Bend, a community of inhabitants who can trace their ancestry to slaves on the antebellum plantation there, depended on the ferry to provide access to the county seat of Camden, the center for social and economic activity. There was no ferry between 1962 and 2006. For forty-four years the ferry did not operate, having had its’ cable deliberately cut so that Gee’s Bend residents could not get to Camden to register to vote. It was an attempt to lessen the political power of the African-Americans in the area. This article explains the key economic and political factors that resulted in restoration of service for the Gee’s Bend ferry.

A Study of the Qianyanzhou Mode in a Subtropical Red Soil Hilly Region of China

Qianyanzhou is located in the heart of Jitai Basin in Guanxi town, the county seat of Taihe county in Jiangxi province. Qianyanzhou has a subtropical humid climate and exemplifies the geographic and geomorphologic characteristics of red soil hilly regions in southern China. In the early 1980s, to control soil and water loss and problems with grain yields, Qianyanzhou's researchers proposed an innovative, comprehensive stereoscopic agriculture development mode known as the “Qianyanzhou mode”. This mode included a forest-livestock-food ecosystem, a forest-fruit-economy ecosystem, and a land-water compound stereoscopic system, all located within a watershed. In the Qianyanzhou mode, soil and water loss were completely controlled, thereby promoting environmental conservation and economic development. The state and the society as a whole supported this mode thanks to its far-reaching social impact. In the 21st century, given new societal concerns and continuing economic development, Qianyanzhou mode has been restructured as two ecosystems of forest-fowl and planting-raising circular economies at landscape level, based on an increase in vegetation coverage from 4.3% to more than 80%. These improved modes can significantly enhance the ecosystem, reduce poverty, and to promote the construction of local ecological civilization. This study introduces the Qianyanzhou mode and summarizes its characteristics in different phases. We hope that the information in this study supports improvements to and promotion of the Qianyanzhou mode. We believe the Qianyanzhou mode can play an important role in efforts to modify the agriculture industrial structure, alleviate poverty, and construct ecological civilization.

Spatial and simultaneous seroepidemiology of anti-Leishmania spp. antibodies in dog owners and their dogs from randomly selected households in a major city of southern Brazil

Although leishmaniasis has been described as a classic example of a zoonosis requiring a comprehensive approach for control, to date, no study has been conducted on the spatial distribution of simultaneous Leishmania spp. seroprevalence in dog owners and dogs from randomly selected households in urban settings. Accordingly, the present study aimed to simultaneously identify the seroprevalence, spatial distribution and associated factors of infection with Leishmania spp. in dog owners and their dogs in the city of Londrina, a county seat in southern Brazil with a population of half a million people and ranked 18th in population and 145th in the human development index (HDI) out of 5570 Brazilian cities. Overall, 564 households were surveyed and included 597 homeowners and their 729 dogs. Anti-Leishmania spp. antibodies were detected by ELISA in 9/597 (1.50%) dog owners and in 32/729 (4.38%) dogs, with significantly higher prevalence (p = 0.0042) in dogs. Spatial analysis revealed associations between seropositive dogs and households located up to 500 m from the local railway. No clusters were found for either owner or dog case distributions. In summary, the seroepidemiological and spatial results collectively show a lack of association of the factors for infection, and the results demonstrated higher exposure for dogs than their owners. However, railway areas may provide favorable conditions for the maintenance of infected phlebotomines, thereby causing infection in nearby domiciled dogs. In such an urban scenario, local sanitary barriers should be focused on the terrestrial routes of people and surrounding areas, particularly railways, via continuous vector surveillance and identification of phlebotomines infected by Leishmania spp.

From Village to City: Social Transformation in a Chinese County Seat. By Andrew B. Kipnis . Oakland: University of California Press, 2016. xxii, 263 pp. ISBN: 9780520289710 (cloth, also available in paper and as e-book).

From Village to City: Social Transformation in a Chinese County Seat. By Andrew B. Kipnis . Oakland: University of California Press, 2016. xxii, 263 pp. ISBN: 9780520289710 (cloth, also available in paper and as e-book).

Analiza poziomu infrastruktury sportowej w ujęciu lokalnym i regionalnym

The article presents a method allowing a comparative analysis of the level of sport infrastructure in a cross-section of territorial units (voivodeships of Poland, and Wadowice, the county seat). Knowing the number of sports facilities in relation to the number of inhabitants enables communities to establish a policy for developing local sports infrastructure. Due to the availability of data, the analysis was possible only for the years 2010 and 2014. The data on sports facilities were provided by the Provincial Statistical Office in Krakow. The number of inhabitants per sports facility in all territorial units was examined.

The Social Role of Intership Programmes in Reducing Migration from a County Seat

This article deals with the role of internship programmes in encouraging young graduates from higher education to stay in their home region and is based on the findings of a questionnaire survey conducted in 2017. The aim of our research was to get a close view of the intern’s motivation and of their satisfaction; futhermore, whether they would like to work for the company and thanks to that stay in the region. Survey findings show that 56 percent of the respondents feel it is important to be employed close to their home, and 80 percent of the interns would like to work in a full-time position as soon as possible and aim to stay the company after the internship programme. These results would suggest that the internship programmemes of the multinational companies help to encourage young graduates to stay in their home region.

The Radicalization of "Bloody-Handed" Bill Davison: How a Union Soldier Became a Pro-Confederate Bushwhacker

The Radicalization of "Bloody-Handed" Bill Davison:How a Union Soldier Became a Pro-Confederate Bushwhacker Stuart W. Sanders (bio) By the time William H. Davison was shot and killed at the end of the Civil War, he had been marked as a notorious pro-Confederate guerrilla. Saddled with a $5,000 bounty on his head and called "the bloody-handed Davison," the Louisville Daily Journal judged him to be "one of the most corrupt scoundrels unhung." While this was an apt description, Davison's reputation as a Confederate bushwhacker was somewhat surprising; three years earlier, he had been recognized for gallantry at the battles of Fort Donelson and Shiloh while serving as a captain in the Union army. Having resigned from the Federal service over the Emancipation Proclamation, his anti-authoritarian streak, deep personal flaws, and anger toward the policies of President Abraham Lincoln's administration ultimately radicalized Bill Davison.1 [End Page 183] Although Davison was a turncoat, period accounts failed to condemn him as the Bluegrass State's Benedict Arnold. Instead, writers focused on Davison's ruthless acts: ears lopped from heads, burned courthouses, robberies, and murder. His service as a Union officer was sometimes mentioned offhandly; his contemporaries, however, understood that, for Davison, the conflict had changed from a struggle for the Union to a war for emancipation. With Lincoln intent on freeing slaves and arming black troops, Davison's radicalization from Union soldier to outlaw did not surprise many Kentuckians. Emancipation and Federal policies pertaining to slaves were at the heart of his brutal transformation. Davison was born on November 1, 1839, at the corner of Clay and Water streets in Hawesville, Kentucky. Davison's hometown—the county seat of Hancock County, which borders the Ohio River west of Louisville—faced episodes of political violence during the late 1850s, and it was in this crucible of conflict that Bill Davison reached adulthood. His father, Dr. Hardin A. Davison, was a controversial figure in his own right. Called "a notorious, bad, and blood-thirsty man," Dr. Davison, convinced that his political enemies were going to kill him, died after trying to blow them up with a makeshift bomb at a local general store in February 1860. Educated locally and known to be a good student, Bill worked in a store before becoming deputy county clerk in nearby Hartford. Standing five feet, eight inches tall and weighing 135 pounds, Davison had olive skin, shoulder-length black hair, brown eyes, and a thin moustache. Known as a violent man, he was once described as having "a very bad expression of countenance—sinister … and when he smiles he reminds you of a dog which would like you if he was certain he would not get a kick."2 [End Page 184] Click for larger view View full resolution Aerial view of Hawesville, Ronald Morgan Postcard Collection, KHS Collections. At the beginning of the Civil War, the twenty-two-year-old Davison was teaching school near Hawesville. In September 1861, he enrolled in the Seventeenth Kentucky Infantry Regiment (U.S.) at Hartford. His motives for enlisting are unknown. From his later actions, however, one can assume that Davison fought to save the Union because he thought that slavery would be safest under the United States Constitution.3 Four months later, he mustered in as captain of Company B at Calhoun, Kentucky. Colonel John Hardin McHenry, a West Pointer and attorney, organized and led the Seventeenth Kentucky. When the unit fought at Fort Donelson in Tennessee in February 1862, it suffered eighty-eight casualties. There, McHenry reported, Davison and two other captains "were in the [End Page 185] thickest of the fight, cheering their men." Less than two months later, Davison led his company at the Battle of Shiloh, where he was again lauded. Davison, McHenry wrote, "behaved with his usual coolness and courage … executing all orders upon the field with zeal and devotion to the cause." The Louisville Daily Journal remarked that Davison "was always considered a brave man—in fact, recklessly so." But, Kentuckians soon learned, as the newspaper described him, he was also "turbulent, troublesome, and treacherous."4 Although official reports paint Davison as an up-and-coming...

A Magyar Szent Korona Országai Vörös-Kereszt Egylete Somogy vármegyei fiókegyletei és tevékenységük az I. világháború idején

The Red Cross Association of the Countries of the Hungarian Holy Crown was founded on 16th May 1881 in Budapest, with the aim of carrying out humanitarian activities in addition to the curing and caring of injured or sick war veterans, going beyond military attendance and complementing state attendance. Between 1887 and 1899 ten branches were founded in Somogy. In addition to the already existing branches of the county seat, the patriotic fervor following the breakout of the war resulted in the establishment of 53 further healthcare facilities with altogether 1822 beds for the injured soldiers in 40 municipalities. This is the very first essay to describe their activities, disclosing detailed monitoring data about the amount of donations. The essay describes in detail the history of the two largest branches of the county (Balatonlelle and Szigetvár).

Collective Agency and Community Resilience: A Theoretical Framework to Understand Agricultural Resistance

First paragraphs: In 1962, Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer traveled to the county seat in Indianola, Mississippi, in order to register to vote. This wasn’t her first time and it wouldn’t be the last. Although she had been warned with threats of violence and threats of death, she was determined to continue until she was able to exercise her right to participate in electoral politics. Upon her return to the Marlow Plantation, the plantation owner, W.D., confronted her. She had been a dedicated employee for 18 years as a share­cropper, time- and recordkeeper, cook, and domes­tic. He told her to withdraw her application for voter registration or leave. Her home, as paltry as it was, was a condition of her employment and that of her husband, Pap. Like many African Ameri­cans, she faced homelessness and joblessness as the price of political participation. She must have feared with good reason that she would be lynched...

The spatial distribution of farmland abandonment and its influential factors at the township level: A case study in the mountainous area of China

Chongqing municipality experienced massive rural population migration to cities and towns in recent years. This study extracted abandoned farmland parcels from 1:10,000 scale farmland distribution maps of 2002 and 2011, calculated the abandonment rates for each township in three selected countries, analyzed the variations of abandonment rates across these townships and investigated the influential factors using the township-level data. Results from the multiple linear regression analysis show that the township forestland area ratio is the primary influential factor on abandonment rate, followed by distance between townships and Chongqing’s main urban zone, average net income per farmer, and farmland area per farmer. Township average elevation, distance between townships and county seat, and terrain slope have positive but statistically insignificant effect. In other words, the farmland abandonment rate is higher in remoter townships and in townships where crops are more prone to threaten from wild animals, where average net income per farmer is higher, and where there is more farmland area per farmer.

Heritagization of disaster ruins and ethnic culture in China: Recovery plans after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake

This article discusses state-led heritagization processes in Beichuan and Wenchuan Counties, two Qiang ethnic minority areas severely affected by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake (China). Certain destroyed landscapes were preserved and turned into earthquake relic sites. In particular, the former Beichuan County seat was entirely heritagized for memorial, economic, and patriotic education purposes, causing an emotional conflict with locals still affected by loss and trauma. At the same time, Qiang cultural practices were hastily registered as national and international intangible cultural heritage, while reconstructed Qiang villages were transformed into heritage tourism destinations. These initiatives tend to reshape Qiang culture elements into fetishized commodities. Allocating massive funds to historically marginalized regions, these post-disaster heritagization programmes aimed at boosting economic recovery, as well as demonstrating state power, national unity and solidarity. Implemented using a top–down method, they appear insensitive to the affected population’s trauma and the sociohistorical context from which the newly heritagized elements originate. The disaster and Qiang culture heritage tourism not only failed to bring about sustainable economic development to the earthquake-stricken areas, but also ignored to a large extent the initial goal of ‘post-disaster cultural recovery’ and the virtues of cultural heritage in recovery processes.

Ecosystem health assessment of Dongshan Island based on its ability to provide ecological services that regulate heavy rainfall

The evaluation of ecosystem health is a hotspot in macro-ecology and ecosystem management. The objective of this paper is to introduce an ecosystem health assessment framework that combines ecosystem service concepts and indicators. We analyzed ecological services on Dongshan Island for regulating heavy rainfall by explicitly addressing the spatial distribution of ecosystem service demand and supply. An index system was then developed for both the areas that provide the ecological service and those that benefit from it. These areas are linked by small watersheds that were extracted using the hydrological analysis function in ArcGIS 10.2. Weights of the indicators were assigned and calculated based on principal component analysis. Finally, at the small watershed scale, the forested area and “other” land area ratios were weighted to assess the overall health of the areas that provide and benefit from this ecological service. The results revealed that the forest health conditions in the northwestern and northern parts of the island were weak, especially in the vicinity of the county seat. The analysis indicated that forested areas in the regions were relatively small, and the functional ecological service related to the redistribution of rainfall provided by these forested areas was minimal. The health states of areas benefiting from this ecological service generally appeared problematic. Areas benefiting from the service were characterized by dense populations, intense urbanization, and high risk of rain-related disaster. Moreover, only small and scattered forests were observed in the urban areas and towns on Dongshan Island. These urbanized areas rarely support large forest patches, and they fail to provide adequate green corridors or significant green space. This forest condition in urban areas cannot provide commendably protective functionality to mitigate heavy rain disasters. Therefore, to improve the ecological health of Dongshan Island, a system of green areas within urban landscapes must be planned and developed.

Overdose Deaths Related to Fentanyl and Its Analogs - Ohio, January-February 2017.

Ohio is experiencing unprecedented loss of life caused by unintentional drug overdoses (1), with illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF) emerging as a significant threat to public health (2,3). IMF is structurally similar to pharmaceutical fentanyl, but is produced in clandestine laboratories and includes fentanyl analogs that display wide variability in potency (2); variations in chemical composition of these drugs make detection more difficult. During 2010-2015, unintentional drug overdose deaths in Ohio increased 98%, from 1,544 to 3,050.* In Montgomery County (county seat: Dayton), one of the epicenters of the opioid epidemic in the state, unintentional drug overdose deaths increased 40% in 1 year, from 249 in 2015 to 349 in 2016 (estimated unadjusted mortality rate=57.7 per 100,000) (4). IMFs have not been part of routine toxicology testing at the coroner's offices and other types of medical and criminal justice settings across the country (2,3). Thus, data on IMF test results in the current outbreak have been limited. The Wright State University and the Montgomery County Coroner's Office/Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory (MCCO/MVRCL) collaborated on a National Institutes of Health study of fentanyl analogs and metabolites and other drugs identified in 281 unintentional overdose fatalities in 24 Ohio counties during January-February 2017. Approximately 90% of all decedents tested positive for fentanyl, 48% for acryl fentanyl, 31% for furanyl fentanyl, and 8% for carfentanil. Pharmaceutical opioids were identified in 23% of cases, and heroin in 6%, with higher proportions of heroin-related deaths in Appalachian counties. The majority of decedents tested positive for more than one type of fentanyl. Evidence suggests the growing role of IMFs, and the declining presence of heroin and pharmaceutical opioids in unintentional overdose fatalities, compared with 2014-2016 data from Ohio and other states (3-5). There is a need to include testing for IMFs as part of standard toxicology panels for biological specimens used in the medical, substance abuse treatment, and criminal justice settings.

Does Administrative Status Matter for Urban Growth? Evidence from Present and Former County Capitals in East Germany

AbstractPublic sector activities are often neglected in the economic approaches used to analyze the driving forces behind urban growth. The institutional status of a regional capital is a crucial aspect of public sector activities. This paper reports on a quasi‐natural experiment on county towns in East Germany. Since 1990, East German cities have demonstrated remarkable differences in population development. During this same period, many towns have lost their status as a county seat due to several administrative reforms. Using a difference‐in‐differences approach, we compare the annual population development of former county capitals to population change in towns that have successfully held on to their capital status throughout the observed period. The estimations show that losing county capital status has a statistically significant negative effect on annual changes in population. This effect continues to increase over time after the respective reforms have been implemented.

Demand for Agricultural Land in Slovakia

Abstract In general, soil is perceived as an unreplaceable and unrenewable natural resource that allows plants, animals and man to live. It is significant in several ways out of which the most important is the production of food for population, the production of fodder for livestock and the production of raw materials for food and light industry. Due to these as well as the other reasons, land becomes the object of competition between different subjects which are trying to get it and use it. The aim of the paper is to map and to characterise the demand for agricultural land at the agricultural land market based on the certificates on fulfilment of the requirements on purchase of agricultural land. Based on the data collected throughout 31 months, it was proved that the demand for agricultural land is influenced by price, land quality, area, fragmentation of land ownership, distance of the offered plot from a county seat and localisation of a given land plot.