Landscape and Regionalism in Portugal: The Case of the Leiria Region

This article aims to explore the landscape appropriation process in the affirmation of the Portuguese region of Leiria. National and foreign leaders cultivated the landscape as a metaphor of the nation. Like other European countries, in the nineteenth century, the landscape was fundamental to understanding the building process of the Portuguese national community. Nowadays aside from the nation, the regional communities also seek cultural affirmation both in the national space as well in the global space. So, local and regional leaders claim the landscape particularities to affirm their regions in the global space.