Geographers are interested in understanding how mythical thought influences spatial practices rather than how it plays a role in mythical narrative structure. Starting from the platonian perspective, this article ends up modifying the latter's perspective. In fact, it is based on a strict conception of myth and it claims that mythical thought is a fundamental tool for understanding geography as a useful human construct. It draws attention to the loss of theoretical and methodological meaning which arises from the withdrawal of myth from the explanation of territorial processes in Western Geography, especially at the particular turning point of its history when the discipline was institutionalized. Finally, the article underlines the benefits to contemporary geography coming from the rediscovery of mythical thought for interpreting territoriality in the context of the great processes at work on the international scène.