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This article is an introduction to the special double issue of the journal Géographie Économie Société entitled “How can we understand the sustainable transition of territories? " This special issue brings together French-language contributions on the territorial dimensions of transitions toward sustainability. Following a summary presentation of the twelve theoretical and empirical contributions, this introduction describes current thinking by looking at the salient points of the articles. On the one hand, it highlights a new way of approaching territories through the prism of sustainable transition: interest in living organisms and metabolisms calls for distance from the “territorial development” paradigm. On the other hand, this introduction underlines the contributions of the territorial approach to the study of sustainable transition, particularly with regard to the multi-level perspective: it highlights the multidimensionality, complexity, and context-dependent nature of transformation processes, and the value of considering them in the comprehensive analysis of possible larger-scale systematic changes.