Accessibility as a major determinant of rural regions

Accessibility and proximity are two of the most important factors of regional development. Without welldeveloped transport infrastructure, goods, people and capital cannot flow between the elements of the settlement networks. There have been many studies dealing with the role and importance of motorway networks in regional development. This is an important issue, because government spend large amount of money aiming to improve the situation of both lagging behind and already developed countries. However, there is no clear evidence which would suggest that these financial resources are useful or not (or if so, to what extent?). This paper aims to present some relationship of lagging behind areas in Hungary, being mostly in the countryside, and their proximity of important spaces, such as the capital city (Budapest) and the centres of NUTS 2 regions. The paper concludes with evaluation of the research results, which can shed some light on the relationship of motorway infrastructure and regional development.