It is a common idea that Portuguese and Spanish epics were rivals, as much as their respective empires. We are trying here to reconsider this idea by studying the geographic descriptions in Alonso de Ercilla (Spain) and Luís de Camões (Portugal), and also in the epics of a third poet, Jerónimo Corte-Real, that alternatively composed in Portuguese and in Spanish. The analysis of the intertextual relationships between these geographical descriptions helps to understand the different steps of parallel evolutions in the treatment of some common territorial problems: the relationships between the metropolis and their colonies; the relationships between the colonies; the relationships betweenthe metropolises themselves.