A method is implemented by a centralized control plane device for a software defined networking (SDN) network. The method performs joint inter-domain and intra-domain traffic engineering as a single optimization process with location varying objectives. The method includes generating a joint representation of interdomain and intradomain traffic demand with spatial differentiation where each domain can have individually defined optimization objectives. The method further includes determining a set of candidate paths for each source-destination pairs (SD) in the SDN network using the joint representation, selecting a candidate path from the set of candidate paths for each SD pair in the SDN network, and programming a set of switches in the data plane of the SDN network to forward the data traffic according to the selected candidate path.