The legendary existence of a great inner lake in the centre of South America was believed for several centuries. On the 1559 map by Hondius, Pantanal is represented as a large lake - Eupana Lacus - surrounding an archipelago. In Hondius map's 1641 improved edition the swampy lake is still there but no name is given. This lake appeared as a common source of Paraguay, São Francisco and Amazonas rivers (!!!) (Hoechne, 1936). This denomination continued being employed even after discovering it was not a lake but a plain subject of seasonal floods. Only during XXth century the region started to be known as Pantanal, also improper denomination as in portuguese it means "swamp".

The name “Xaraes Sea” was first mentioned by the spanish conqueror Nuñes Cabeza de Vaca, founder of Asunción city in Paraguay, who traveled in 1543 upriver until Lake Gaiba. There he must have heard about the “sea” from the Xaraes indian tribe, which inhabited the shores of another extensive lake, Lagoa Uberaba, further north. Cabeza de Vaca, who also invented the tale of the seven golden cities of Cibola in Texas, probably did not check his sources very well. To his defense one can admit that a lake the size of Uberaba, which can reach a surface of over 400 square kilometers, can easily be considered as an “inland sea” even under the present climatic conditions.

For two centuries Pantanal and surrounding areas were still domain of indian tribes as Paiaguá, expert boatmen; Guaicuru, feared horsemen using animals stolen from Spanish; Guató, who first inhabited the flooded areas, Bororo and others. The indian tribes remained a fiercely independent menace to the colonists, allying either white men sides - bandeirantes or spanish - until the Paraguay War of 1864-1870.

First white-men presence in region was about 1593, with the foundation of spanish´s Santiago de Xerez mission near Mboetei River - nowadays called Miranda - in Southern Pantanal, and destroyed by bandeirantes expeditions from São Paulo province, in Mato Grosso since 1622 (Holanda, 1986). During early XVIIIth century Pascoal Moreira Cabral discovered gold near Cuiabá. In rapid sequence, the present frontier line separating Portuguese from Spanish lands became established and studded with stronghold townships. Gold mining increased the occupation in the region of nowadays Poconé city, founded in 1781. While mines were depleted, the region´s colonizers imported different cattle brands and started extensive cattle breeding, eased by the region's natural pastures. Nowadays 99% of the Pantanal is divided in particular farms, where 8 million heads of cattle were once raised simultaneously, a number limitated by available dry land during annual flood.

In the early 1970's, military dictatorship government projected Transpantaneira Road, originally meant to link Corumbá city from Southern Pantanal to Cuiabá at North, when Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul were just one state. As they've been split in 1977, southern capital became Campo Grande and the unfinished road from Corumbá to north was abandoned. Meanwhile, the northern part from Poconé until Cuiabá River bank was built quickly in the first years of the 70's without hearing the inhabitants advises: instead of using the natural horse route done by pantaneiros through higher lands, there was traced a 147km straight line of dam toward South dividing North Pantanal in two halves, changing the water distribution during rainy season and flooding lands formerly dry, drowning many thousands of cattle in the farms and forcing several small proprietors to sell their land cheap. Since then, cattle breeding decayed as economic income, giving place to ecotourism business simultaneously with cattle in many farms along the road.