干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

This paper analyzes the change of perception about the Big North, from the negation of the geography as a tourist attraction in both traveler’ guides and geography manuals until 1948, when a show appraisal of the northern space began in the geography instruction of the nacional educational system and also in the important journal En Viaje, edited by the National Railway Company. This involved incorporating northern writers in the journal and giving account of both the meaning of the desert nature from the coast to the pre-Andes and the archaeological patrimony that would be discovered in the 1950s. This new view will coincide with a strong northern regionalism - from Arica to Antofagasta - and also the country’s concern about regional development, whose best tourist expression will be shown in the 1960s.