Sustainable Development of an Agricultural Region – The Case of the Allgäu, Southern Germany

Since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, much has been written about sustainable development. Nevertheless, information about sustainable development linked explicitly to a particular region is still relatively rare. In this review, we analyse and evaluate the sustainable development of the Allgau, a rural agricultural region in southern Germany which has high touristic potential. The Allgau is a typical rural region which had to experience many challenges, and undergo many changes and adaptations during its history, even when living conditions were not easy until the midst of the twentieth century.