These Tran­syl­van­ian vil­lages with their for­ti­fied church­es pro­vide a vivid pic­ture of the cul­tur­al land­scape of south­ern Tran­syl­va­nia. The sev­en vil­lages inscribed, found­ed by the Tran­syl­van­ian Sax­ons, are char­ac­ter­ized by a spe­cif­ic land-use sys­tem, set­tle­ment pat­tern and orga­ni­za­tion of the fam­i­ly farm­stead that have been pre­served since the late Mid­dle Ages. They are dom­i­nat­ed by their for­ti­fied church­es, which illus­trate build­ing styles from the 13th to the 16th cen­tu­ry.