The purpose of this article is to reflect on a complex conception of the concept of territory within the framework of the link with the environment of Chilean state universities. To achieve this purpose, the institutional policies of the area of the 18 universities of the State of Chile, the Higher Education Law and the Law of State Universities were reviewed, as well as the reference framework of linkage with the environment of the Consortium of Universities of the State of Chile. The results indicate that in the documents analyzed there is a poor definition of the concept of territory, and its mention is mainly geographical, which deprives a critical sense of a highly relevant university function for the development of society.