Changes of land use, particularly those affecting agriculture, constitute an important issue in Galicia due to the consequences they carry from the environmental, economic and cultural points of view. Nevertheless, it is largely pending of being studied in greater detail, especially from the perspective of its location on the territory. This paper presents the use of statistical tools to evaluate the influence of several biophysical, structural, social and economic variables on the pattern of changes affecting the the distribution of agricultural land in the district of Terra Chá in the period 1956-2004. Among other results, it is shown that although the abandonment of agriculture took place mainly in less productive parcels located far from farms, the result of this transition was different in those areas located at higher altitude and farther from populated places (where shrubs covered most of former agricultural plots) and in more accessible areas where tree cover increased significantly. The opposite transition (from shrublands to agricultural use) was demonstrated to be closely correlated with the structure of parcels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]