Abstract

The State of Chile started to address the regional planning of the Arica Province since the decade of 1960, considering its border condition and its geopolitical position. This trend was further deepened since 1974, when the military regime, through CONARA, developed the regionalization. In the latter, a particular representation of the space can be appreciated that, following arguments of the critical geopolitics, we have called geopolitical collective imaginaries about the internal borders and semi-populated areas in Chile's far North. These representations would tend to perpetuate its peripheral condition and occasionally would disagree with regional views that, among other aspirations, promote initiatives of cross-border integration. We hold that this policy, conducted by the central State in relation to the geostrategic role of the Arica Province, has created problems for over three decades, which we have defined as the geopolitical issue of regional development'.