Areas V3 and V4 are commonly thought of as individual entities in the primatevisual system, based on definition criteria such as their representation ofvisual space, connectivity, functional response properties, and relativeanatomical location in cortex. Yet, large-scale functional and anatomicalorganization patterns not only emphasize distinctions within each area, but alsolinks across visual cortex. Specifically, the visuotopic organization of V3 andV4 appears to be part of a larger, supra-areal organization, clustering theseareas with early visual areas V1 and V2. In addition, connectivity patternsacross visual cortex appear to vary within these areas as a function of theirsupra-areal eccentricity organization. This complicates the traditional view ofthese regions as individual functional “areas.” Here, wewill review the criteria for defining areas V3 and V4 and will discussfunctional and anatomical studies in humans and monkeys that emphasize theintegration of individual visual areas into broad, supra-areal clusters thatwork in concert for a common computational goal. Specifically, we propose thatthe visuotopic organization of V3 and V4, which provides the criteria fordifferentiating these areas, also unifies these areas into the supra-arealorganization of early visual cortex. We propose that V3 and V4 play a criticalrole in this supra-areal organization by filtering information about the visualenvironment along parallel pathways across higher-order cortex.