The aim of this paper is to identify the new regional pattern of the Brazilian economy by defining its economic poles and their areas of polarization, which will provide an economic regionalization for Brazil. The methodological tools to assign this objective will be an adapted version of the gravitational model using the Geographic Information System - GIS. This procedure will allow the identification of the influence areas for each regional pole, based on the potential interaction among the spatial units and their hierarchy in terms of economic power of attraction. The microregion of the Brazilian Statistics Bureau (IBGE) will be the spatial unit of this study, which will rely on microdata of the 1991 Demographic Census. The digital cartographic base is the Brazilian Municipal Digital Network converted into the MapInfo. The results will provide a hierarchical spatial structure of macro regions, mesoregions, microregions, and municipalities. In addition, we will make a basic economic characterization of the regions related to their agglomeration capability and economic activities.
regional economics; economic geography; economic regionalization; geographic information system (GIS); Brazil