The current paper sets out the main determinants to emerge between culture, perceived as an art form, and regional economic development, in a two-fold sense: on the one hand, the impact of cultural activities on the economic development of an area in the short and long term, and on the other, no less important, how economic growth impacts development and changes in the cultural sector. We also explore the spatial logic of cultural and artistic activities, which are inevitably converging, however much we may consider that talent or cultural heritage are in principle equally distributed. All of these analyses are framed within the sphere of cultural economics, the analytical borders of which as a scientific discipline are dealt with at the beginning of the paper.