The forms and types of residential areas are conditioned by historical and socio-economic conditions of the country. Development of industrial relations have evolved and accommodation system in rural areas. Tenure and land-use changes played the most important role in the development of rural land. Modern rural residential areas formed under the influence of certain particularities characteristic to one or the other region of the country. The article analyzes five major periods of landscape development, land reform factors which had influence on residential areas formation, as well as the problem of decay of residential areas and the factors influencing the development of existing settlements.