ABSTRACT
The sertões (backlands, hinterland) were conquered and occupied slowly, in a process characterized by the tension between myth and reality, which generated what we can designate as an "imaginary geography" in both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. This kind of geography, which lasted until the 18th Century, is marked by a cartographic vacuum in what refers to the backlands. This vacuum began to be fulfilled at that time, in a process that was made possible by the cooperation between Portuguese authorities and the sertanistas, as it was the case with territorial expansion itself.
KEYWORDS
sertão; territorial expansion; imaginary geography