[citation needed] Ribeiro devoted his life to the teaching and research of geography and is often described as one of the main reformers of this science in Portugal.

Between 1937 and 1940 (during World War II), he lived in Paris and worked at the Sorbonne University, alongside March Bloch, Emmanuel de Martonne and A.

This is one of the cornerstones in his career, as he develops a detailed study on Portugal's "dual nature", or in other words, "a country which is Atlantic by location but mostly Mediterranean in culture".

In fact, Ribeiro is one of the first geographers formulating the idea of Atlantic Europe as a geographical and cultural unit (it had been partially advanced by Otero Pedrayo), an idea which would be further developed by authors such as P. Flatrès, Emyr Estyn Evans, A. Bouhier, Meynier, J. García Fernández, Patrick O'Flanagan, Barry Cunliffe, Carlos Ferrás Sexto and Xoán Paredes.

[2] In 1966, the Centro de Estudos Geográficos began to publish the geography journal Finisterra, which soon would become the main reference of geographical science in Portugal, to the present day.