This paper is aimed at analysing the rural building heritage present in the region of Apulia in Southern Italy, focusing on the constructions that can be defined minor in terms of size and functions unlike the best known masserie, large multi – functional vernacular farmhouses. A list was preliminarily drawn-up that contains typological macro categories of both residential and operating type buildings, which is able to represent the varied Apulian rural building heritage. Each of the groups defined in this manner was examined by outlining the building and functional characteristics of each category. The numeric and distributional assessment of the rural constructions present in the Apulian territory was subsequently carried out, based on the Military Geographic Institute (IGM) cartography – scale ratio 1:25,000 – that is the most effective historical information source in the national and regional context. The comparison between construction typologies and territorial areas has shown a clear correlation between forms, functions and characteristics of the territorial context.

The work aims to deepen the knowledge of rural historical buildings of Apulia region in Italy since most of the studies and official sources have been mainly focusing on large building structures called masserie and substantially ignore the minor rural buildings. The work develops a methodology suitable to acknowledge the different types of the historical rural constructions widespread in the Apulian landscape for a better and effective census. The results showed a close relationship between typological variability and the territory.