| Sumario: | This article presents information regarding the importance of mathematics in geography. In countries with a strong and vital geographic tradition, where geographers are increasingly involved in spatial and regional planning, the quantitative revolution has virtually come and gone. Most of its once avant garde ideas have now been absorbed into academic curricula, and such basic skills as multivariate analysis, computer programming and linear programming are taken for granted, even at the undergraduate level. But as for mathematics in geography, this is a very different question. Given the often bitter and intellectually defensive arguments advanced even today, it is ironic to note the very long tradition of mathematical training in geography. Geometry and geography were intimately linked in ancient Greece, and important algebraic extensions were added by early Arab scholars. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the traditional role of the geographer in Europe often required extensive mathematical skills for exploring, mapping and navigating the earth's surface, and such work raised in its turn mathematical problems. Today, few geographers can handle even the most elementary mathematics of their most vital tool-the map.
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