Abstract Traditional agro-silvo-pastoral systems are becoming each day more important, representing multifunctional systems that can contribute to the preservation of agrobiodiversity and of traditional knowledge and associated culture, to the wellbeing of local communities and to sustainable development of rural areas, as testified by the increasing interest regarding the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Despite many researches on traditional agro-silvo-pastoral systems tend to focus only on land uses and land use changes, is also important to analyse the different features that characterize cultural landscapes, as well as to produce detailed spatial maps, in order to preserve and valorise these systems as a whole. The paper intends to compare two traditional silvopastoral systems in two different continents and environments: sabana de morro (El Salvador) and pastures with carob trees (Italy), considered as good example of biocultural diversity. Both these sites are characterized by extensive cattle breeding in a hot climate under the shade of trees, whose fruits can also integrate the animal diet. The study analyzed the traditional landscape structure, with particular attention to the presence of linear elements, that act as property divisions and as ecological corridors, contributing to biodiversity at landscape scale. Sabana de Morro is characterized by a complex system of hedges that enhances the variety of species, while an extensive network of dry-stone walls divides the Sicilian pastures with carob trees. These two different types of linear elements created thanks to the local farmers’ knowledge are made of different materials but can play a similar ecological and social function, acting as a division between one pasture and another, as a delimitation of property boundaries, and are necessary to allow a correct pasture management. Despite the differences, these two traditional linear features deeply characterize the ...