In the last decades in the Republic of Moldova (RM), the trend of tourism development is manifested, through its return to nature and authentic cultural values. Thus, research dedicated to the practice of ecotourism or environmentally friendly tourism is becoming more and more current. The Center Development Region (CDR) of the RM was taken into the study. The CDR has considerable ecotourism potential, represented, first of all, by the geomorphological aspect of the territory – an unusual diversity of natural landscapes and unique natural monuments, of European and world value. The other categories of protected natural areas in this region are also of interest, which facilitates the practice of ecotourism. According to the annexes to the Law on the fund of state protected natural areas no. 1538-XIII of 25.02.1998, with subsequent amendments, as well as based on data from specialized literature, we estimated the number of protected natural areas that are of interest for the practice of ecotourism in the CDR. Thus, the CDR territory has 401 protected natural areas by the state: 1 national park (Orhei), 3 scientific reserves, 28 geological and paleontological monuments, 14 hydrological monuments, 4 botanical monuments, with representative sectors of forest vegetation, 276 centuries-old trees, 26 forest nature reserves, 3 medicinal plant nature reserves, 20 landscape reserves, 1 resource reserve, 14 multifunctional management areas, 8 landscape architecture monuments, 1 dendrological garden, 1 botanical garden and 1 zoo. In the CDR, the richest in state protected natural areas in terms of number, but not in terms of surface, is the Chisinau municipality: 92 protected natural areas (87 centuries-old trees, 1 dendrological garden, 1 botanical garden, 1 zoo, 2 monuments of landscape architecture). On the second place according to the number of protected natural areas is the Călărași district: 87 protected natural areas, and on the last place is the Ialoveni district with 5 protected areas. Thus, the presence of a large number of representative state protected natural areas on the territory of the CDR of the RM creates favourable premises for the development of environmentally friendly tourism.