The 1941 controversy on the regionalization of Brazil

Pierre Monbeig and the geographers of the National Geography Council

Abstract

This paper analyzes the encounter between two great traditions of international geography in Brazilian territory that emerged when Pierre Monbeig and the geographers of National Geography Council, located in the country’s capital, diverged, in 1941, on the criteria to be employed in the regionalization of Brazil. We suggest that Brazil can be seen as a chapter in the process of consolidation of two great paradigms of geographical science and that the “pays neuf” has contributed to shape, in a territorial, political, and intellectual sense, the geography of the actors immersed in the experience of consolidation of Brazilian geography.