Land and soil are critically impacted by multiple use requirements. It is increasingly understood that the urban-rural metabolism and relationships are critically determining the in-/efficiency of land use practices. Thus, the following question has been emphasized: How can improved urban-rural linkages contribute to sustainable territorial development, including sustainable land management?

In this contribution, we introduce the UN-Habitat “Urban-Rural Linkages: Guiding Principles” (URL-GP), which intend to be a framework for action to advance integrated territorial development. Second, we introduce different topical cases related to un-/sustainable land use in the urban-rural continuum in Germany, Kenya and Tanzania. We discuss (1) if the URL-GP at their meta-level do provide a global framework to address these challenges even though the specificities of the cases are numerous and heterogeneous, and (2) in how far the GP are soil and land use specific.

We conclude that the URL-GP does indeed provide an important contribution to support more sustainable land-use management and policies.