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The contemporary rural residential area system formed under specific circumstances characteristic to a particular region and under historic, economic, politic and social details of residential area development. This article studies the influence of natural factors to the formation of rural residential area system, discusses the problem of residential area vanishing and the factors that influence the development of current residential areas. The main factor that influences the changes of the Lithuanian rural residential area structure that started in the 20th century and is still ongoing, is the political changes in the country, however, economic and social aspects also played a minor role in it. The oldest forms of Lithuanian residential areas are as follows: 1) scattered settlements near mounds, 2) stack settlements, 3) a specific part of grunges. The development of settlements was greatly influenced by the Volok Reform. The old stack settlements and separate granges should have been vanished and relocated to linear settlements that were nearer to the manor. Throughout time it did not meet the advanced farming requirements. The solution was to divide it into granges. During the interwar period the aim of the land reform, which was implemented in Lithuania, was to establish better conditions for the building of grunges in private land holdings. After the restoration of independence, the organisation and size of the land holdings formed in land management projects was not related to the establishment of farms and their internal structure as well as the residential place of the owner. Thus taking into consideration the land regulation relationships peculiar to each period and the performed analysis of rural residential area structure development some tendencies of changes is presented.
