Аннотация:The complex issue of ‘shrinking’ cities representing whole regions has traditionally been studied by researchers in the context of its self-contained aspects be it geography, economics, demography, culture, marketing and advertising, etc. In the scope of area studies as integrated science it seems possible to develop a number of ‘shrinking’ regions’ future development strategies considering their special characteristics. Herewith, it is important to allocate not only common i.e. global patterns of the process under examination but also to highlight regional peculiarities which, on the one hand, caused the ‘shrinking’ process and, on the other hand, affected the specific character of the consequences for each ‘shrinking’ region.