Land cover maps constitute necessary tools for development planning and management of the terrain. Furthermore, land cover maps depicting the current reality are essential in countries where, due to political problems or rapid dynamic phenomena that have taken place, resulting in considerable residential and infrastructure development pressure. Indeed, Paphos District area is one of the areas in Cyprus that experienced considerable development after the political Cyprus problem of the 1974. Severe land-use patterns changes occurred from 1974 up to date. One important potential source of information on investigating such land-cover changes exists in the form of remotely sensed images. An ongoing project focused on the sustainable development of Paphos District consists of the use of remote sensing (both satellite data and aerial photographs) so as to assess land-cover changes in Paphos District area in Cyprus for a period before 1974 up to 2000. Ths paper addresses the preliminary findings of this Transactions on Ecology and the Environment vol 67, © 2003 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541