EN
Issues relating to Latin America have been of interest to staff and students of the Institute of Geography / Department of Geography and Regional Studies for over 50 years. Research and didactics concerning Latin America were carried on within organizational units named according to that main regional interests. The text summarizes activities of these units - the first one - the Latin American Department transformed into the Department of Regional Studies on Latin America and later into the Department of Geography of Latin America - in terms of teaching, research, international cooperation and publishing. Particular attention was paid to the characteristics of collaborative research projects concerning functioning of local rural communities, processes of urbanization and migration and their importance in the development on the regional and local level. Their major part was conceived and carried out in close collaboration with geographers from Latin America (mainly from Mexico, Cuba, Argentina and Peru) as well as with Latin American studies representatives from European countries (Spain, France and Germany). In the section on international cooperation, much space is devoted to the participation of the Department's staff in the organization of international symposia within the framework of International Congress of Americanists (in the period 1985-2012) and congresses organized by CEISAL - European Council of Social Research on Latin America ( in the period 1996-2014 ). The last part of the text offers a short charactcristics of more than 100 master's thesis prepared within the graduate seminar on Latin America in the years 1983-2013. The seminar was offered as part of the master program on geography of developing countries.