The environmental questions are, undoubtedly, one of the most important questions of our days. The growing number of environmental problems that occur not only in the big metropolis but also in the countryside warns to the need to consider environmental aspects on public intervention scope that comes in the territorial planning. Although both the environmental problems that are getting worse now, and territorial planning action are not very recent, it was just in a very recent time that the environmental question deserve the attention from the planning authorities. This paper intends to show how the environmental aspects were and are still being inserted in the territorial planning, since the very beginning, till the actual phase, when these questions begin to be present in the scope of planning in a comprehensive level.Agravamento dos problemas ambientais nas metrópoles e nas áreas rurais. Apresentação de como a variável ambiental foi e está sendo incorporada no planejamento territorial, desde os seus primórdios até a fase atual.