Portuguese Republic
República Portuguesa  (language?)
Flag of Portugal Coat of arms of Portugal
Anthem: "A Portuguesa"

Location of  Portugal  (dark green)

– in Europe  (green & dark grey)
– in the European Union  (green)

(and largest city)
Official language(s) Portuguese
Recognised regional languages MirandeseTemplate:NoteTag
Ethnic groups (2018)
Demonym Portuguese, Lusitanian
Government Unitary semi-presidential constitutional republic[1]
 -  President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
 -  Prime Minister António Costa
 -  Assembly President Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues
Legislature Assembly of the Republic
 -  Foundation 868 
 -  Re-founding 1095 
 -  Sovereignty 24 June 1128 
 -  Kingdom 25 July 1139 
 -  Recognition 5 October 1143 
 -  Papal recognition 23 May 1179 
 -  Restoration 1 December 1640 
 -  Liberal Constitution 23 September 1822 
 -  Republic 5 October 1910 
 -  Democratisation 25 April 1974 
 -  Present Constitution 25 April 1976Template:NoteTag 
 -  EEC accession 1 January 1986 
 -  Total 92,212 km2 [2](109th)
35,603 sq mi 
 -  Water (%) 0.5
 -  2018 estimate 10,276,617[3] 
 -  2011 census 10,562,178[4] 
 -  Density 111/km2 (97th)
298/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2019 estimate
 -  Total $340.715 billion[5] 
 -  Per capita $33,166[5] 
GDP (nominal) 2019 estimate
 -  Total $239.473 billion[5] 
 -  Per capita $23,311[5] 
Gini (2017) 32.1 
HDI (2017) 0.847 (41st)
Currency EuroTemplate:NoteTag () (EUR)
Time zone WET (UTC)
 -  Summer (DST) WEST (UTC+1)
Note: Mainland Portugal and Madeira use WET/WEST, the Azores use AZOT/AZOST
Date formats dd/mm/yyyy (CE)
Drives on the right
Internet TLD .pt
Calling code +351

Portugal (Portuguese: [puɾtuˈɣaɫ]), officially the Portuguese Republic (Template:Lang-pt [ʁɛˈpuβlikɐ puɾtuˈɣezɐ]),Template:NoteTag is a country located mostly on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost sovereign state of mainland Europe, being bordered to the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and east by Spain. Its territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both autonomous regions with their own regional governments.

Portugal is the oldest nation state on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest in Europe, its territory having been continuously settled, invaded and fought over since prehistoric times. The pre-Celtic people, Celts, Carthaginians and Romans were followed by the invasions of the Visigoths and Suebi Germanic peoples. Portugal as a country was established during the Christian Reconquista against the Moors who had invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711 AD. Founded in 868, the County of Portugal gained prominence after the Battle of São Mamede in 1128. The Kingdom of Portugal was later proclaimed following the Battle of Ourique in 1139, and independence from León was recognised by the Treaty of Zamora in 1143.[6]

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal established the first global empire, becoming one of the world's major economic, political and military powers.[7][8][9] During this period, today referred to as the Age of Discovery, Portuguese explorers pioneered maritime exploration, notably under royal patronage of Prince Henry the Navigator and King John II, with such notable voyages as Bartolomeu Dias' sailing beyond the Cape of Good Hope (1488), Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India (1497–98) and the European discovery of Brazil (1500). During this time Portugal monopolized the spice trade, divided the world into hemispheres of dominion with Castille, and the empire expanded with military campaigns in Asia. However, events such as the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the country's occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, the independence of Brazil (1822), and a late industrialization compared to other European powers, erased to a great extent Portugal's prior opulence.[10]

After the 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established, later being superseded by the Estado Novo right-wing authoritarian regime. Democracy was restored after the Carnation Revolution in 1974, ending the Portuguese Colonial War. Shortly after, independence was granted to almost all its overseas territories. The handover of Macau to China in 1999 marked the end of what can be considered the longest-lived colonial empire.

Portugal has left a profound cultural and architectural influence across the globe, a legacy of around 250 million Portuguese speakers, and many Portuguese-based creoles. It is a developed country with a high-income advanced economy and high living standards.[11][12][13] Additionally, it is highly placed in rankings of moral freedom (2nd), peacefulness (3rd), democracy (8th),[14] press freedom (12th), stability (15th), social progress (24th), prosperity (24th), and LGBT rights (7th in Europe).[15] A member of the United Nations and the European Union, Portugal was also one of the founding members of NATO, the eurozone, the OECD, and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

Etymology Edit

The word Portugal derives from the Roman-Celtic place name Portus Cale;[16] a city where present-day Vila Nova de Gaia now stands, at the mouth of the River Douro in the north of what is now Portugal. The name of the city is from the Latin word for port or harbour, portus, but the second element of Portus Cale is the subject of numerous theories. The mainstream explanation for the name is that it is an ethnonym derived from the Castro people, also known as the Callaeci, Gallaeci or Gallaecia, a people who occupied the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. The names Callaici and Cale are the origin of today's Gaia, Galicia.

Another, romantic theory has it that Cala was the name of a Celtic goddess (drawing a comparison with the Gaelic Cailleach a supernatural hag). A further theory is that Cale or Calle is a derivation of the Celtic word for port, like the Irish caladh or Scottish Gaelic cala. These explanations however would require the pre-Roman language of the area to have been a branch of Q-Celtic, which is not generally accepted. The region's pre-Roman language was Gallaecian Celtic.

Some French scholars believe the name may have come from 'Portus Gallus',[17] the port of the Gauls or Celts.

Around 200 BC, the Romans took the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War, and in the process conquered Cale and renamed it Portus Cale (Port of Cale) incorporating it to the province of Gaellicia with capital in Bracara Augusta (modern day Braga, Portugal). During the Middle Ages, the region around Portus Cale became known by the Suebi and Visigoths as Portucale. The name Portucale evolved into Portugale during the 7th and 8th centuries, and by the 9th century, that term was used extensively to refer to the region between the rivers Douro and Minho. By the 11th and 12th centuries, Portugale, Portugallia or Portvgalliae was already referred to as Portugal.

History Edit

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Prehistory Edit

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The early history of Portugal is shared with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula located in South Western Europe. The name of Portugal derives from the joined Romano-Celtic name Portus Cale. The region was settled by Pre-Celts and Celts, giving origin to peoples like the Gallaeci, Lusitanians, Celtici and Cynetes, visited by Phoenicians, Ancient Greeks and Carthaginians, incorporated in the Roman Republic dominions as Lusitania and part of Gallaecia, after 45 BC until 298 AD.

The region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by Neanderthals and then by Homo sapiens, who roamed the border-less region of the northern Iberian peninsula.[1] These were subsistence societies that, although they did not establish prosperous settlements, did form organized societies. Neolithic Portugal experimented with domestication of herding animals, the raising of some cereal crops and fluvial or marine fishing.[1]

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Reconstructed house in Citânia de Briteiros (up) and paved yard in Cividade de Terroso (down), examples of Celtic Castro Culture of Northern Portugal (9th century BC1st century)


It is believed by some scholars that early in the first millennium BC, several waves of Celts invaded Portugal from Central Europe and inter-married with the local populations, forming different tribes. Another theory suggests that Celts inhabited Western Iberia / Portugal well before any large Celtic migrations from Central Europe (Koch and Cunliffe, 2010, 2012, 2016, 2019). In addition, a number of linguists expert in ancient Celtic have presented compelling evidence that the Tartessian language, once spoken in parts of SW Spain and SW Portugal, is at least proto-Celtic in structure. Modern archeology and research shows a Portuguese root to the Celts in Portugal and elsewhere.[2] During that period and until the Roman invasions, the Castro culture (a variation of the Urnfield culture also known as Urnenfelderkultur) was prolific in Portugal and modern Galicia.[3] This culture, together with the surviving elements of the Atlantic megalithic culture and the contributions that come from the more Western Mediterranean cultures, ended up in what has been called the Cultura Castreja or Castro Culture. This designation refers to the characteristic Celtic populations called 'dùn', 'dùin' or 'don' in Gaelic and that the Romans called castrae in their chronicles.

Based on the Roman chronicles about the Callaeci peoples, along with the Lebor Gabála Érenn[4] narrations and the interpretation of the abundant archaeological remains throughout the northern half of Portugal and Galicia, it is possible to infer that there was a matriarchal society, with a military and religious aristocracy probably of the feudal type. The figures of maximum authority were the chieftain (chefe tribal), of military type and with authority in his Castro or clan, and the druid, mainly referring to medical and religious functions that could be common to several castros. The Celtic cosmogony remained homogeneous due to the ability of the druids to meet in councils with the druids of other areas, which ensured the transmission of knowledge and the most significant events. The first documentary references to Castro society are provided by chroniclers of Roman military campaigns such as Strabo, Herodotus and Pliny the Elder among others, about the social organization, and describing the inhabitants of these territories, the Gallaeci of Northern Portugal as: "A group of barbarians who spend the day fighting and the night eating, drinking and dancing under the moon."

There were other similar tribes, and chief among them were the Lusitanians; the core area of these people lay in inland central Portugal, while numerous other related tribes existed such as the Celtici of Alentejo, and the Cynetes or Conii of the Algarve. Among the tribes or sub-divisions were the Bracari, Coelerni, Equaesi, Grovii, Interamici, Leuni, Luanqui, Limici, Narbasi, Nemetati, Paesuri, Quaquerni, Seurbi, Tamagani, Tapoli, Turduli, Turduli Veteres, Turdulorum Oppida, Turodi, and Zoelae. A few small, semi-permanent, commercial coastal settlements (such as Tavira) were also founded in the Algarve region by PhoeniciansCarthaginians.

Roman Lusitania and Gallaecia Edit

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Romans first invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 219 BC. The Carthaginians, Rome's adversary in the Punic Wars, were expelled from their coastal colonies. During the last days of Julius Caesar, almost the entire peninsula was annexed to the Roman Republic.

The Roman conquest of what is now part of Portugal took almost two hundred years and took many lives of young soldiers and the lives of those who were sentenced to a certain death in the slave mines when not sold as slaves to other parts of the empire. It suffered a severe setback in 155 BC, when a rebellion began in the north. The Lusitanians and other native tribes, under the leadership of Viriathus, wrested control of all of western Iberia.

File:Torre de Centum Cellas.jpg

Rome sent numerous legions and its best generals to Lusitania to quell the rebellion, but to no avail – the Lusitanians kept conquering territory. The Roman leaders decided to change their strategy. They bribed Viriathus's allies to kill him. In 139 BC, Viriathus was assassinated, and Tautalus became leader.


In 27 BC, Lusitania gained the status of Roman province. Later, a northern province of Lusitania was formed, known as Gallaecia, with capital in Bracara Augusta, today's Braga. There are still many ruins of castros (hill forts) throughout modern Portugal and remains of the Castro culture. Some urban remains are quite large, like Conímbriga and Mirobriga. The former, beyond being one of the largest Roman settlements in Portugal, is also classified as a National Monument. Conímbriga lies 16 kilometres (9.9 miles) from Coimbra which in turn was the ancient Aeminium). The site also has a museum that displays objects found by archaeologists during their excavations.

Several works of engineering, such as baths, temples, bridges, roads, circuses, theatres and laymen's homes are preserved throughout the country. Coins, some coined in Lusitanian land, as well as numerous pieces of ceramics, were also found. Contemporary historians include Paulus Orosius (c. 375–418)[5] and Hydatius (c. 400–469), bishop of Aquae Flaviae, who reported on the final years of the Roman rule and arrival of the Germanic tribes.

Germanic kingdoms: Suebi and Visigoths Edit

In the early 5th century, Germanic tribes, namely the Suebi and the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) together with their allies, the Sarmatians and Alans invaded the Iberian Peninsula where they would form their kingdom. The Kingdom of the Suebi was the Germanic post-Roman kingdom, established in the former Roman provinces of Gallaecia-Lusitania. 5th-century vestiges of Alan settlements were found in Alenquer (from old Germanic Alan kerk, temple of the Alans), Coimbra and Lisbon.[6]

File:Reino suevo.svg

About 410 and during the 6th century it became a formally declared Kingdom of the Suebi, where king Hermeric made a peace treaty with the Gallaecians before passing his domains to Rechila, his son. In 448 Rechila died, leaving the state in expansion to Rechiar. After the defeat against the Visigoths, the Suebian kingdom was divided, with Frantan and Aguiulfo ruling simultaneously. Both reigned from 456 to 457, the year in which Maldras (457–459) reunified the kingdom to finish being assassinated after a failed Roman-Visigothic conspiracy. Although the conspiracy did not achieve its true purposes, the Suebian Kingdom was again divided between two kings: Frumar (Frumario 459–463) and Remismund (Remismundo, son of Maldras) (459–469) who would re-reunify his father's kingdom in 463 and that he would be forced to adopt Arianism in 465 due to the Visigoth influence. By the year 500, the Visigothic Kingdom had been installed in Iberia, it was based in Toledo and advancing westwards. They became a threat to the Suebian rule. After the death of Remismund in 469 a dark period set in, where virtually all written texts and accounts disappear. This period lasted until 550. The only thing known about this period is that Theodemund (Teodemundo) most probably ruled the Suebians. The dark period ended with the reign of Karriarico (550–559) who reinstalled Catholicism in 550. He was succeed by Theodemar or Theodemir (Teodomiro 559–570) during whose reign the 1st Council of Braga (561) was held.


The councils represented an advance in the organization of the territory (paroeciam suevorum (Suebian parish) and the Christianization of the pagan population (De correctione rusticorum) under the auspices of Saint Martin of Braga (São Martinho de Braga).

After the death of Teodomiro, Miro (570–583) was his successor. During his reign, the 2nd Council of Braga (572) was held. The Visigothic civil war began in 577. Miro intervened. Later in 583 he also organized an unsuccessful expedition to reconquer Seville. During the return from this failed operation Miro died.

In the Suebian Kingdom many internal struggles continued to take place. Eborico (Eurico, 583–584) was dethroned by Andeca (Audeca 584–585), who failed to prevent the Visigothic invasion led by Leovigildo. The Visigothic invasion, completed in 585, turned the once rich and fertile kingdom of the Suebi into the sixth province of the Gothic kingdom. Leovigild was crowned King of Gallaecia, Hispania and Gallia Narbonensis.


For the next 300 years and by the year 700, the entire Iberian Peninsula was ruled by the Visigoths. Under the Visigoths, Gallaecia was a well-defined space governed by a doge of its own. Doges at this time were related to the monarchy acted as princes in all matters. Both 'governors' Wamba and Wittiza (Vitiza) acted as doge (they would later become kings in Toledo). These two became known as the 'vitizians', who headquartered in the northwest and called on the Arab invaders from the South to be their allies in the struggle for power in 711.

King Roderic (Rodrigo) was killed while opposing this invasion, thus becoming the last Visigothic king of Iberia.

From the various Germanic groups who settled in Western Iberia, the Suebi left the strongest lasting cultural legacy in what is today Portugal, Galicia and Asturias.[7][8][9]

According to Dan Stanislawski, the Portuguese way of living in regions North of the Tagus is mostly inherited from the Suebi, in which small farms prevail, distinct from the large properties of Southern Portugal. Bracara Augusta, the modern city of Braga and former capital of Gallaecia, became the capital of the Suebi. Orosius, at that time resident in Hispania, shows a rather pacific initial settlement, the newcomers working their lands[10] or serving as bodyguards of the locals.[11] Another Germanic group that accompanied the Suebi and settled in Gallaecia were the Buri. They settled in the region between the rivers Cávado and Homem, in the area known as Terras de Bouro (Lands of the Buri).[12]

Islamic period and the Reconquista Edit

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Today's modern day continental Portugal, along with most of modern Spain, was part of al-Andalus between 711–1249, following the Umayyad Caliphate conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711. This occupation lasted from some decades in the North to five centuries in the South.

After defeating the Visigoths in only a few months, the Umayyad Caliphate started expanding rapidly in the peninsula. Beginning in 711, the land that is now Portugal became part of the vast Umayyad Caliphate's empire of Damascus, which stretched from the Indus river in the Indian sub-continent up to the South of France, until its collapse in 750. That year the west of the empire gained its independence under Abd-ar-Rahman I with the establishment of the Emirate of Córdoba. After almost two centuries, the Emirate became the Caliphate of Córdoba in 929, until its dissolution a century later in 1031 into no less than 23 small kingdoms, called Taifa kingdoms.

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The governors of the taifas each proclaimed themselves Emir of their provinces and established diplomatic relations with the Christian kingdoms of the north. Most of Portugal fell into the hands of the Taifa of Badajoz of the Aftasid Dynasty, and after a short spell of an ephemeral Taifa of Lisbon in 1022, fell under the dominion of the Taifa of Seville of the Abbadids poets. The Taifa period ended with the conquest of the Almoravids who came from Morocco in 1086 winning a decisive victory at the Battle of Sagrajas, followed a century later in 1147, after the second period of Taifa, by the Almohads, also from Marrakesh.[13] Al-Andaluz was divided into different districts called Kura. Gharb Al-Andalus at its largest was constituted of ten kuras,[14] each with a distinct capital and governor. The main cities of the period in Portugal were Beja, Silves, Alcácer do Sal, Santarém and Lisbon. The Muslim population of the region consisted mainly of native Iberian converts to Islam (the so-called Muwallad or Muladi) and berbers. The Arabs were principally noblemen from Syria and Oman; and though few in numbers, they constituted the elite of the population. The Berbers were originally from the Atlas mountains and Rif mountains of North Africa and were nomads.

County of Portugal Edit

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An Asturian Visigothic noble named Pelagius of Asturias in 718 was elected leader[15] by many of the ousted Visigoth nobles. Pelagius called for the remnant of the Christian Visigothic armies to rebel against the Moors and regroup in the unconquered northern Asturian highlands, better known today as the Cantabrian Mountains, in what is today the small mountain region in North-western Spain, adjacent to the Bay of Biscay.[16]

Pelagius' plan was to use the Cantabrian mountains as a place of refuge and protection from the invading Moors. He then aimed to regroup the Iberian Peninsula's Christian armies and use the Cantabrian mountains as a springboard from which to regain their lands. In the process, after defeating the Moors in the Battle of Covadonga in 722, Pelagius was proclaimed king, thus founding the Christian Kingdom of Asturias and starting the war of Christian reconquest known in Portuguese as the Reconquista Cristã.[16]

File:Henri de Bourgogne reçoit l'investiture du comté de Portugal, 1094 (Claude Jacquand, dit Claudius; 1841).png

At the end of the 9th century, the region of Portugal, between the rivers Minho and Douro, was reconquered from the Moors by Vímara Peres on the orders of King Alfonso III of Asturias. Finding that the region had previously had two major cities – Portus Cale in the coast and Braga in the interior, with many towns that were now deserted – he decided to repopulate and rebuild them with Portuguese and Galician refugees and other Christians.[17] Apart from the Arabs from the South, the coastal regions in the North were also attacked by Norman and Viking raiders mainly from 844. The last great invasion, through the Minho (river), ended with the defeat of Olaf II Haraldsson in 1014 against the Galician nobility who also stopped further advances into the County of Portugal.

Vímara Peres organized the region he had reconquered, and elevated it to the status of County, naming it the County of Portugal after the region's major port city – Portus Cale' or modern Porto. One of the first cities Vimara Peres founded at this time is Vimaranes, known today as Guimarães – the "birthplace of the Portuguese nation" or the "cradle city" (Cidade Berço in Portuguese).[17]

After annexing the County of Portugal into one of the several counties that made up the Kingdom of Asturias, King Alfonso III of Asturias knighted Vímara Peres, in 868, as the First Count of Portus Cale (Portugal). The region became known as Portucale, Portugale, and simultaneously Portugália – the County of Portugal.[17]

Later the Kingdom of Asturias was divided into a number of Christian Kingdoms in Northern Iberia due to dynastic divisions of inheritance among the king's offspring. With the forced abdication of Alfonso III "the Great" of Asturias by his sons in 910, the Kingdom of Asturias split into three separate kingdoms. The three kingdoms were eventually reunited in 924 under the crown of León.

In 1093, Alfonso VI of León bestowed the county to Henry of Burgundy and married him to his daughter, Teresa of León, for his role in reconquering the land from Moors. Henry based his newly formed county in Bracara Augusta (modern Braga), capital city of the ancient Roman province, and also previous capital of several kingdoms over the first millennia.

Afonsine eraEdit

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Afonso's campaigns were successful and, on 25 July 1139, he obtained an overwhelming victory in the Battle of Ourique, and straight after was unanimously proclaimed King of Portugal by his soldiers. This is traditionally taken as the occasion when the County of Portugal, as a fief of the Kingdom of León, was transformed into the independent Kingdom of Portugal.


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During the Reconquista period, Christians reconquered the Iberian Peninsula from Moorish domination. Afonso Henriques and his successors, aided by military monastic orders, pushed southward to drive out the Moors. At this time, Portugal covered about half of its present area. In 1249, the Reconquista ended with the capture of the Algarve and complete expulsion of the last Moorish settlements on the southern coast, giving Portugal its present-day borders, with minor exceptions.

In one of these situations of conflict with the kingdom of Castile, Dinis I of Portugal signed with the king Fernando IV of Castile (who was represented, when a minor, by his mother the queen Maria de Molina) the Treaty of Alcañices (1297), which stipulated that Portugal abolished agreed treaties against the kingdom of Castile for supporting the infant Juan de Castilla. This treaty established among other things the border demarcation between the kingdom of Portugal and the kingdom of Leon, where the disputed town of Olivenza was included.

The reigns of Dinis I (Denis I), Afonso IV (Alphons IV), and Pedro I (Peter I) for the most part saw peace with the Christian kingdoms of Iberia.

In 1348 and 1349 Portugal, like the rest of Europe, was devastated by the Black Death.[18] In 1373, Portugal made an alliance with England, which is the longest-standing alliance in the world. Over time, this went far beyond geo-political and military cooperation (protecting both nations' interests in Africa, the Americas and Asia against French, Spanish and Dutch rivals) and maintained strong trade and cultural ties between the two old European allies. In the Oporto region, in particular, there is visible English influence to this day.

Joanine era and Age of Discoveries Edit


John I of Portugal's victory at the Battle of Aljubarrota secured the House of Aviz's claim to the throne. Painting of 1480.
Batalha Monastery was erected by King John I to commemorate his victory in the 1383–1385 Crisis against Castile.



Portugal spearheaded European exploration of the world and the Age of Discovery. Prince Henry the Navigator, son of King John I of Portugal, became the main sponsor and patron of this endeavour. During this period, Portugal explored the Atlantic Ocean, discovering the Atlantic archipelagos the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde; explored the African coast; colonized selected areas of Africa,; discovered an eastern route to India via the Cape of Good Hope; discovered Brazil, explored the Indian Ocean, established trading routes throughout most of southern Asia; and sent the first direct European maritime trade and diplomatic missions to China and Japan.

In 1415, Portugal acquired the first of its overseas colonies by conquering Ceuta, the first prosperous Islamic trade centre in North Africa. There followed the first discoveries in the Atlantic: Madeira and the Azores, which led to the first colonization movements.

File:Henry the Navigator1.jpg


The Treaty of Tordesillas, intended to resolve the dispute that had been created following the return of Christopher Columbus, was made by Pope Alexander VI, the mediator between Portugal and Spain. It was signed on 7 June 1494, and divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the two countries along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of Africa).

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In 1498, Vasco da Gama accomplished what Columbus set out for and became the first European to reach India by sea, bringing economic prosperity to Portugal and its population of 1.7 million residents, and helping to start the Portuguese Renaissance. In 1500, the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real reached what is now Canada and founded the town of Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, Newfoundland and Labrador, long before the French and English in the 17th century, and being just one of many Portuguese colonizations of the Americas.[19][20][21]

In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil and claimed it for Portugal.[22] Ten years later, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa in India, Muscat and Ormuz in the Persian Strait, and Malacca, now a state in Malaysia. Thus, the Portuguese empire held dominion over commerce in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic. Portuguese sailors set out to reach Eastern Asia by sailing eastward from Europe, landing in such places as Taiwan, Japan, the island of Timor, and in the Moluccas.

Although for a long period it was believed the Dutch were the first Europeans to arrive in Australia, there is also some evidence that the Portuguese may have discovered Australia in 1521.[23][24][25] From 1519 to 1522, Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães) organized a Spanish expedition to the East Indies which resulted in the first circumnavigation of the globe. Magellan never made it back to Europe as he was murdered by natives in the Philippines in 1521.

The Treaty of Zaragoza, signed on 22 April 1529 between Portugal and Spain, specified the anti-meridian to the line of demarcation specified in the Treaty of Tordesillas.

All these factors made Portugal one of the world's major economic, military, and political powers from the 15th century until the late 16th century.

Iberian Union, Restoration and early Brigantine era Edit

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Portugal voluntarily entered a dynastic union between 1580 and 1640. This occurred because the last two kings of the House of Aviz – King Sebastian, who died in the battle of Alcácer Quibir in Morocco, and his great-uncle and successor, King-Cardinal Henry of Portugal – both died without heirs, resulting in the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580.

Subsequently, Philip II of Spain claimed the throne and was accepted as Philip I of Portugal. Portugal did not lose its formal independence, briefly forming a union of kingdoms. At this time Spain was a geographic territory.[26] The joining of the two crowns deprived Portugal of an independent foreign policy and led to its involvement in the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands.

War led to a deterioration of the relations with Portugal's oldest ally, England, and the loss of Hormuz, a strategic trading post located between Iran and Oman. From 1595 to 1663 the Dutch-Portuguese War primarily involved the Dutch companies invading many Portuguese colonies and commercial interests in Brazil, Africa, India and the Far East, resulting in the loss of the Portuguese Indian sea trade monopoly. In 1640, John IV of Portugal spearheaded an uprising backed by disgruntled nobles and was proclaimed king. The Portuguese Restoration War ended the sixty-year period of the Iberian Union under the House of Habsburg. This was the beginning of the House of Braganza, which reigned in Portugal until 1910.

King John IV's eldest son came to reign as Afonso VI, however his physical and mental disabilities left him overpowered by Luís de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd Count of Castelo Melhor. In a palace coup organized by the King's wife, Maria Francisca of Savoy, and his brother, Pedro, Duke of Beja, King Afonso VI was declared mentally incompetent and exiled first to the Azores and then to the Royal Palace of Sintra, outside Lisbon. After Afonso's death, Pedro came to the throne as King Pedro II. Pedro's reign saw the consolidation of national independence, imperial expansion, and investment in domestic production.

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Pedro II's son, John V, saw a reign characterized by the influx of gold into the coffers of the royal treasury, supplied largely by the royal fifth (a tax on precious metals) that was received from the Portuguese colonies of Brazil and Maranhão. Acting as an absolute monarch, John nearly depleted his country's tax revenues on ambitious architectural works, most notably Mafra Palace, and on commissions and additions for his sizable art and literary collections.

Official estimates – and most estimates made so far – place the number of Portuguese migrants to Colonial Brazil during the gold rush of the 18th century at 600,000.[27] This represented one of the largest movements of European populations to their colonies in the Americas during colonial times.

Pombaline era and Enlightenment Edit

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As the King's confidence in de Melo increased, the King entrusted him with more control of the state. By 1755, Sebastião de Melo was made Prime Minister. Impressed by British economic success that he had witnessed from his time as an Ambassador, he successfully implemented similar economic policies in Portugal. He abolished slavery in Portugal and in the Portuguese colonies in India, reorganized the army and the navy, restructured the University of Coimbra, and ended discrimination against different Christian sects in Portugal.


The 1755 Lisbon earthquake devastated Portugal with an estimated magnitude between 8.5 and 9.0.

Disaster fell upon Portugal in the morning of 1 November 1755, when Lisbon was struck by a violent earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 8.5–9. The city was razed to the ground by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami and ensuing fires.[28] Sebastião de Melo survived by a stroke of luck and then immediately embarked on rebuilding the city, with his famous quote: "What now? We bury the dead and take care of the living."

Despite the calamity and huge death toll, Lisbon suffered no epidemics and within less than one year was already being rebuilt. The new city centre of Lisbon was designed to resist subsequent earthquakes. Architectural models were built for tests, and the effects of an earthquake were simulated by marching troops around the models. The buildings and big squares of the Pombaline City Centre still remain as one of Lisbon's tourist attractions. Sebastião de Melo also made an important contribution to the study of seismology by designing an inquiry that was sent to every parish in the country.




The new ruler, Queen Maria I of Portugal, disliked the Marquis because of the power he amassed, and never forgave him for the ruthlessness with which he dispatched the Távora family, and upon her accession to the throne, she withdrew all his political offices. The Marquis of Pombal died on his estate at Pombal in 1782.

However, historians also argue that Pombal's "enlightenment," while far-reaching, was primarily a mechanism for enhancing autocracy at the expense of individual liberty and especially an apparatus for crushing opposition, suppressing criticism, and furthering colonial economic exploitation as well as intensifying book censorship and consolidating personal control and profit.[29]

Napoleonic era Edit


</div> With the occupation by Napoleon, Portugal began a slow but inexorable decline that lasted until the 20th century. This decline was hastened by the independence of Brazil, the country's largest colonial possession.

In the autumn of 1807, Napoleon moved French troops through Spain to invade Portugal. From 1807 to 1811, British-Portuguese forces would successfully fight against the French invasion of Portugal in the Peninsular War, during which the royal family and the Portuguese nobility, including Maria I, relocated to the Portuguese territory of Brazil, at that time a colony of the Portuguese Empire, in South America. This episode is known as the Transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil.

In 1807, as Napoleon's army closed in on Lisbon, João VI of Portugal, the Prince Regent, transferred his court to Brazil and established Rio de Janeiro as the capital of the Portuguese Empire. In 1815, Brazil was declared a Kingdom and the Kingdom of Portugal was united with it, forming a pluricontinental state, the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.

File:Portuguese Constitution of 1826.jpg


Thus he returned to Portugal but left his son Pedro in charge of Brazil. When the Portuguese Government attempted the following year to return the Kingdom of Brazil to subordinate status, his son Pedro, with the overwhelming support of the Brazilian elites, declared Brazil's independence from Portugal. Cisplatina (today's sovereign state of Uruguay), in the south, was one of the last additions to the territory of Brazil under Portuguese rule.

Brazilian independence was recognized in 1825, whereby Emperor Pedro I granted to his father the titular honour of Emperor of Brazil. John VI's death in 1826 caused serious questions in his succession. Though Pedro was his heir, and reigned briefly as Pedro IV, his status as a Brazilian monarch was seen as an impediment to holding the Portuguese throne by both nations. Pedro abdicated in favour of his daughter, Maria II (Mary II). However, Pedro's brother, Infante Miguel, claimed the throne in protest. After a proposal for Miguel and Maria to marry failed, Miguel seized power as King Miguel I, in 1828. In order to defend his daughter's rights to the throne, Pedro launched the Liberal Wars to reinstall his daughter and establish a constitutional monarchy in Portugal. The war ended in 1834, with Miguel's defeat, the promulgation of a constitution, and the reinstatement of Queen Maria II.

Constitutional monarchy Edit


Top to bottom: The Lisbon Regicide (1908), Manuel II's acclamation as King (1908) and the Proclamation of the Republic (1910)

</div> Queen Maria II (Mary II) and King Ferdinand II's son, King Pedro V (Peter V) modernized the country during his short reign (1853–1861). Under his reign, roads, telegraphs, and railways were constructed and improvements in public health advanced. His popularity increased when, during the cholera outbreak of 1853–1856, he visited hospitals handing out gifts and comforting the sick. Pedro's reign was short, as he died of cholera in 1861, after a series of deaths in the royal family, including his two brothers Infante Fernando and Infante João, Duke of Beja, and his wife, Stephanie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Pedro not having children, his brother, Luís I of Portugal (Louis I) ascended the throne and continued his modernization.


With the Conference of Berlin of 1884, Portuguese territories in Africa had their borders formally established on request of Portugal in order to protect the centuries-long Portuguese interests in the continent from rivalries enticed by the Scramble for Africa. Portuguese towns and cities in Africa like Nova Lisboa, Sá da Bandeira, Silva Porto, Malanje, Tete, Vila Junqueiro, Vila Pery and Vila Cabral were founded or redeveloped inland during this period and beyond. New coastal towns like Beira, Moçâmedes, Lobito, João Belo, Nacala and Porto Amélia were also founded. Even before the turn of the 20th century, railway tracks as the Benguela railway in Angola, and the Beira railway in Mozambique, started to be built to link coastal areas and selected inland regions.


The Portuguese territories in Africa were Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Portuguese Guinea, Angola, and Mozambique. The tiny fortress of São João Baptista de Ajudá on the coast of Dahomey, was also under Portuguese rule. In addition, Portugal still ruled the Asian territories of Portuguese India, Portuguese Timor and Portuguese Macau.

On February 1, 1908, King Dom Carlos I of Portugal and his heir apparent and his eldest son, Prince Royal Dom Luís Filipe, Duke of Braganza, were assassinated in Lisbon in the Terreiro do Paço by two Portuguese republican activist revolutionaries, Alfredo Luís da Costa and Manuel Buíça. Under his rule, Portugal had been declared bankrupt twice – first on June 14, 1892, and then again on May 10, 1902 – causing social turmoil, economic disturbances, angry protests, revolts and criticism of the monarchy. His second and youngest son, Manuel II of Portugal, became the new king, but was eventually overthrown by the 5 October 1910 Portuguese republican revolution, which abolished the monarchy and installed a republican government in Portugal, causing him and his royal family to flee into exile in London, England.

First Republic and Estado Novo Edit

File:Bernardino Machado, Teófilo Braga, António José de Almeida e Afonso Costa, após uma sessão solene do Parlamento em homenagem aos mortos da revolução republicana, 1911.png

The new republic had many problems. Portugal had 45 different governments in just 15 years. During World War 1 (1914–1918), Portugal helped the Allies fight the Central Powers. But the war hurt its weak economy. Political instability and economic weaknesses were fertile ground for chaos and unrest during the Portuguese First Republic. These conditions would lead to the failed Monarchy of the North, 28 May 1926 coup d'état, and the creation of the National Dictatorship (Ditadura Nacional). This in turn led to the establishment of the right-wing dictatorship of the Estado Novo under António de Oliveira Salazar in 1933.


After India attained independence in 1947, pro-Indian residents of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, with the support of the Indian government and the help of pro-independence organisations, separated the territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli from Portuguese rule in 1954.[30] In 1961, São João Baptista de Ajudá's annexation by the Republic of Dahomey was the start of a process that led to the final dissolution of the centuries-old Portuguese Empire.

File:Antonio Salazar-1.jpg





Throughout the colonial war period Portugal had to deal with increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions imposed by most of the international community. However, the authoritarian and conservative Estado Novo regime, first installed and governed by António de Oliveira Salazar and from 1968 onwards led by Marcelo Caetano, tried to preserve a vast centuries-long intercontinental empire with a total area of 2,168,071 km2.[31]

Carnation Revolution and European integration Edit

File:Portuguese colonial war map1.PNG


Over one million Portuguese refugees fled the former Portuguese provinces as white settlers were usually not considered part of the new identities of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia. Mário Soares and António de Almeida Santos were charged with organising the independence of Portugal's overseas territories. By 1975, all the Portuguese African territories were independent and Portugal held its first democratic elections in 50 years.


File:Portugese minister Soares (voorzitter Socialistische Partij) op Schiphol aangeko, Bestanddeelnr 927-7110.jpg



Portugal's last overseas and Asian colonial territory, Macau, was peacefully handed over to the People's Republic of China (PRC) on December 20, 1999, under the 1987 joint declaration that set the terms for Macau's handover from Portugal to the PRC. In 2002, the independence of East Timor (Asia) was formally recognized by Portugal, after an incomplete decolonization process that was started in 1975 because of the Carnation Revolution, but interrupted by an Indonesian armed invasion and occupation.

File:Tratado de Lisboa 13 12 2007 (081).jpg

On 26 March 1995, Portugal started to implement Schengen Area rules, eliminating border controls with other Schengen members while simultaneously strengthening border controls with non-member states. In 1996 the country was a co-founder of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) headquartered in Lisbon. In 1996, Jorge Sampaio became president. He won re-election in January 2001. Expo '98 took place in Portugal and in 1999 it was one of the founding countries of the euro and the eurozone. On July 5, 2004, José Manuel Barroso, then Prime Minister of Portugal, was nominated President of the European Commission, the most powerful office in the European Union. On 1 December 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force, after it had been signed by the European Union member states on 13 December 2007 in the Jerónimos Monastery, in Lisbon, enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the Union and improving the coherence of its action. The Republic of Ireland was the only EU state to hold a democratic referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. It was initially rejected by voters in 2008.


Geography Edit

Topography and administration.

The territory of Portugal includes an area in the Iberian Peninsula (referred to as the continent by most Portuguese) and two archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean: the archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores. It lies between latitudes 33° and 43° N, and longitudes 32° and 6° W.

Mainland Portugal is split by its main river, the Tagus, that flows from Spain and disgorges in Tagus Estuary, in Lisbon, before escaping into the Atlantic. The northern landscape is mountainous towards the interior with several plateaus indented by river valleys, whereas the south, including the Algarve and the Alentejo regions, is characterized by rolling plains.[34]

Portugal's highest peak is the similarly named Mount Pico on the island of Pico in the Azores. This ancient volcano, which measures 2,351 m (7,713 ft) is an iconic symbol of the Azores, while the Serra da Estrela on the mainland (the summit being 1,991 m (6,532 ft) above sea level) is an important seasonal attraction for skiers and winter sports enthusiasts.

The archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores are scattered within the Atlantic Ocean: the Azores straddling the Mid-Atlantic Ridge on a tectonic triple junction, and Madeira along a range formed by in-plate hotspot geology. Geologically, these islands were formed by volcanic and seismic events. The last terrestrial volcanic eruption occurred in 1957–58 (Capelinhos) and minor earthquakes occur sporadically, usually of low intensity.

Portugal's exclusive economic zone, a sea zone over which the Portuguese have special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources, has 1,727,408 km2. This is the 3rd largest exclusive economic zone of the European Union and the 11th largest in the world.[35]

Climate Edit

File:Portugal Köppen.svg

Portugal is defined as a Mediterranean climate (Csa in the South, interior, and Douro region; Csb in the North, Central Portugal and coastal Alentejo; mixed oceanic climate along the northern half of the coastline,[36] Temperate Maritime (Cfb) in the mountains located in Northwestern sector (mainland) and also in some Azores islands, Semi-arid climate or Steppe climate ((BSk in certain parts of Côa region and Beja district far South), and also in Porto Santo island (BSh), Warm Desertic (BWh) in Selvagens islands, Subtropical Humid in Corvo island (Cfa), according to the Köppen-Geiger Climate Classification), and is one of the warmest European countries: the annual average temperature in mainland Portugal varies from 8–12 °C (46.4–53.6 °F) in the mountainous interior north to 16–20 °C (60.8–68.0 °F) in the south and on the Guadiana river basin. There are however, variations from the highlands to the lowlands: Spanish biologist Salvador Rivas Martinez presents several different bioclimatic zones for Portugal.[37] The Algarve, separated from the Alentejo region by mountains reaching up to 900 metres (3,000 ft) in Alto de Fóia, has a climate similar to that of the southern coastal areas of Spain or Southwest Australia.

Annual average rainfall in the mainland varies from just over 3,200 mm (126.0 in) in the northern mountains to less than 300 mm (11.8 in) in the area of the Massueime River, near Côa, along the Douro river. Mount Pico is recognized as receiving the largest annual rainfall (over 6,250 mm (246.1 in) per year) in Portugal, according to Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera.

In some areas, such as the Guadiana basin, annual average temperatures can be as high as 28 °C (82 °F), and summer highest temperatures routinely are over 40 °C (104 °F). The record high of 47.4 °C (117.3 °F) was recorded in Amareleja, although this might not be the hottest spot in summer, according to satellite readings.[38][39]

File:Praia da Marinha (2012-09-27), by Klugschnacker in Wikipedia (86).JPG

Snowfalls occur regularly in the winter in the interior North and Centre of the country in districts such as Guarda, Bragança, Viseu and Vila Real, particularly on the mountains. In winter temperatures may drop below −10.0 °C (14.0 °F) in particular in Serra da Estrela, Serra do Gerês, Serra do Marão and Serra de Montesinho. In these places snow can fall any time from October to May. In the South of the country snowfalls are rare but still occur in the highest elevations. While the official absolute minimum by IPMA is −16.0 °C (3.2 °F) in Penhas da Saúde and Miranda do Douro, lower temperatures have been recorded, such as −17.5 °C (0.5 °F) by Bragança Polytechnic Institute in the outskirts of the city in 1983, and below −20.0 °C (−4.0 °F) in Serra da Estrela

Portugal has around 2500 to 3200 hours of sunshine a year, an average of 4–6 h in winter and 10–12 h in the summer, with higher values in the south-east and lower in the north-west.

The sea surface temperature on the west coast of mainland Portugal varies from 12–15 °C (53.6–59.0 °F) in winter to 18–22 °C (64.4–71.6 °F) in the summer while on the south coast it ranges from 15 °C (59.0 °F) in winter and rises in the summer to about 23 °C (73.4 °F), occasionally reaching 26 °C (78.8 °F).[citation needed]


Porto Santo island in Madeira has a semi-arid steppe climate (BSh). The Savage Islands, which are part of the regional territory of Madeira and a nature reserve are unique in being classified as a desert climate (BWh) with an annual average rainfall of approximately 150 mm (5.9 in). The sea surface temperature in the archipelagos varies from 17–18 °C (62.6–64.4 °F) in winter to 24–25 °C (75.2–77.0 °F) in the summer occasionally reaching 25 °C (77.0 °F).[citation needed]

Biodiversity Edit


Despite the fact that humans have occupied the territory of Portugal for thousands of years, something still remains of the original vegetation. In Gerês both mature deciduous and coniferous forests can be found, an extremely rare worldwide mature Mediterranean forest remain in some parts of the Arrábida mountain and a subtropical laurissilva forest, dating back to the Tertiary period, covers its largest continuous area in the world in the Madeira main island. Due to the human population decrease and rural exodus, Pyrenean oak and other local native trees are colonizing many abandoned areas.

Boar, Iberian red deer, roe deer, and the Iberian wild goat, are reported to have expanded greatly during recent decades. Boars were found recently roaming at night inside large urban areas, like in Setubal. Protected areas of Portugal include one national park, 12 natural parks, nine natural reserves, five natural monuments, and seven protected landscapes, which include the Parque Nacional da Peneda-Gerês, the Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela and the Paul d'Arzila.

These natural environments are shaped by diverse flora, and include widespread species of pine (especially the Pinus pinaster and Pinus pinea species), the English oak (Quercus robur), the Pyrenean oak (Quercus pyrenaica) the chestnut (Castanea sativa), the cork-oak (Quercus suber), the holm oak (Quercus ilex) or the Portuguese oak (Quercus faginea). Due to their economic value, some species of the genus Eucalyptus were introduced and are now common, despite their environmental impact.

Laurisilva is a unique type of subtropical rainforest, which nowadays, in Europe, is only restricted to the Iberian Peninsula: in the Azores, and in particular on the island of Madeira, there are large forests of endemic Laurisilva (the latter protected as a natural heritage preserve). There are several species of diverse mammalian fauna, including the fox, badger, iberian lynx, iberian wolf, wild goat (Capra pyrenaica), wild cat (Felis silvestris), hare, weasel, polecat, chameleon, mongoose, civet, the occasional brown bear[40] and many others. Portugal is an important stopover for migratory birds, in places such as Cape St. Vincent or the Monchique mountains, where thousands of birds cross from Europe to Africa during the autumn or in the spring (return migration).


There are more than 100 freshwater fish species, varying from the giant European catfish (in the Tagus International Natural Park) to some small and endemic species that live only in small lakes (along the western portion of country, for example). Some of these rare and specific species are highly endangered because of habitat loss, pollution and drought. Up-welling along the west coast of Portugal makes the sea extremely rich in nutrients and diverse species of marine fish; the Portuguese marine waters are one of the richest in the world. Marine fish species are more common, and include thousands of species, such as the sardine (Sardina pilchardus), tuna and Atlantic mackerel. Bioluminescent species are also well represented (including species in different colour spectrum and forms), like the glowing plankton that are possible to observe on some beaches.


Government and administration Edit

Portugal has been a semi-presidential representative democratic republic since the ratification of the Constitution of 1976, with Lisbon, the nation's largest city, as its capital[citation needed]. The Constitution grants the division or separation of powers among four bodies referred as "organs of Sovereignty": the President of the Republic, the Government, the Assembly of the Republic and the Courts.[41]

The President, who is elected to a five-year term, has an executive role: the current President is Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. The Assembly of the Republic is a single chamber parliament composed of 230 deputies elected for a four-year term. The Government is headed by the Prime Minister (currently António Costa) and includes Ministers and Secretaries of State. The Courts are organized into several levels, among the judicial, administrative and fiscal branches. The Supreme Courts are institutions of last resort/appeal. A thirteen-member Constitutional Court oversees the constitutionality of the laws.

Portugal operates a multi-party system of competitive legislatures/local administrative governments at the national, regional and local levels. The Assembly of the Republic, Regional Assemblies and local municipalities and parishes, are dominated by two political parties, the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party, in addition to the Unitary Democratic Coalition (Portuguese Communist Party and Ecologist Party "The Greens"), the Left Bloc and the Democratic and Social Centre – People's Party, which garner between 5 and 15% of the vote regularly.

Presidency of the Republic Edit

File:Portugal (17135381862).jpg

The Head of State of Portugal is the President of the Republic, elected to a five-year term by direct, universal suffrage. He or she has also supervision and reserve powers. Presidential powers include the appointment of the Prime Minister and the other members of the Government (where the President takes into account the results of legislative elections); dismissing the Prime Minister; dissolving the Assembly of the Republic (to call early elections); vetoing legislation (which may be overridden by the Assembly); and declaring a state of war or siege. The President is also the ex officio Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.


Government Edit

File:Lisboa April 2014-15a.jpg

The Government is headed by the presidentially appointed Prime Minister, also including one or more Deputy Prime Ministers, Ministers, Secretaries of State and Under-Secretaries of State.

The Government is both the organ of sovereignty that conducts the general politics of the country and the superior body of the public administration.

It has essentially Executive powers, but has also limited legislative powers. The Government can legislate about its own organization, about areas covered by legislative authorizations conceded by the Assembly of the Republic and about the specific regulation of generalist laws issued by the Assembly.

The Council of Ministers – under the presidency of the Prime Minister (or the President of Portugal at the latter's request) and the Ministers (may also include one or more Deputy Prime Ministers) – acts as the cabinet. Each government is required to define the broad outline of its policies in a programme, and present it to the Assembly for a mandatory period of debate. The failure of the Assembly to reject the government programme by an absolute majority of deputies confirms the cabinet in office.

Parliament Edit

File:Lisbon, Portugal (Sharon Hahn Darlin) São Bento.jpg

The Assembly of the Republic, in Lisbon, is the national parliament of Portugal. It is the main legislative body, although the Government also has limited legislative powers.

The Assembly of the Republic is a unicameral body composed of up to 230 deputies. Elected by universal suffrage according to a system of closed party-list proportional representation, deputies serve four-year terms of office, unless the President dissolves the Assembly and calls for new elections.

Currently the Government (PS) and the parties supporting it through a confidence-and-supply agreement (BE, PCP, PEV) control parliament with the most seats. The PSD and CDS-PP parties form the opposition to the government alongside a single seat held by PAN.

Law and drug policy Edit

File:Campus Justiça (cropped).JPG

The Portuguese legal system is part of the civil law legal system, also called the continental family legal system. The main laws include the Constitution (1976, as amended), the Portuguese Civil Code (1966, as amended) and the Penal Code of Portugal (1982, as amended). Other relevant laws are the Commercial Code (1888, as amended) and the Civil Procedure Code (1961, as amended).

The supreme national courts are the Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Court. The Public Ministry, headed by the Attorney General of the Republic, constitutes the independent body of public prosecutors.


Portugal was the first country in the world to abolish life imprisonment (in 1884) and was one of the first countries to abolish the death penalty. Maximum jail sentences are limited to 25 years.

Portugal is also known for having decriminalized the usage of all common drugs in 2001, the first country in the world to do so. Portugal decriminalized possession of effectively all drugs that are still illegal in other developed nations including cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and LSD. While possession is legal, trafficking and possession of more than "10 days worth of personal use" are still punishable by jail time and fines. People caught with small amounts of any drug are given the choice to go to a rehab facility, and may refuse treatment without consequences. Despite criticism from other European nations, who stated Portugal's drug consumption would tremendously increase, overall drug use has declined along with the number of HIV infection cases, which had dropped 50 percent by 2009. Drug use among 16- to 18-year-olds also declined, however the use of marijuana rose only slightly among that age group.[42][43][44]

LGBT rights Edit

Gay rights have increased substantially in the past years. On 31 May 2010, Portugal became the sixth country in Europe and the eighth country in the world to legally recognize same-sex marriage at the national level. The law came into force on 5 June 2010.[45] Same-sex adoption has been allowed since 1 March 2016[46] as is female same-sex couple access to medically assisted reproduction since 13 May 2016.[47] This bill was adopted by the Parliament and signed by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.[48][49][50] As of January 2017 the New Law of Gender Identity,[51] simplified the process of gender and name change for transgender people, making it easier for minors to change their gender identity.[52]

Law enforcement Edit

File:Render da Guarda no Palacio de Belem 22.JPG


Correctional Services Edit

Portugal has 49 correctional facilities in total run by the Ministry of Justice. They include 17 central prisons, 4 special prisons, 27 regional prisons, and 1 'Cadeia de Apoio'(Support Detention Centre).[53] Their current prison population is about 12,806 inmates, which comes to about 0.12% of their entire population.[54] Their incarceration rate has been on the rise since 2010, with a 15% increase over the past eight years.[54]

Administrative divisions Edit

Administratively, Portugal is divided into 308 municipalities (Template:Lang-pt), which after a reform in 2013 are subdivided into 3,092 civil parishes (Template:Lang-pt). Operationally, the municipality and civil parish, along with the national government, are the only legally local administrative units identified by the government of Portugal (for example, cities, towns or villages have no standing in law, although may be used as catchment for the defining services). For statistical purposes the Portuguese government also identifies Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), inter-municipal communities and informally, the district system, used until European integration (and being phased-out by the national government).Template:Original research inline Continental Portugal is agglomerated into 18 districts, while the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are governed as autonomous regions; the largest units, established since 1976, are either mainland Portugal (Template:Lang-pt) and the autonomous regions of Portugal (Azores and Madeira).


Within the European Union NUTS system, Portugal is divided into seven regions: the Azores, Alentejo, Algarve, Centro, Lisboa, Madeira and Norte, and with the exception of the Azores and Madeira, NUTS areas are subdivided into 28 subregions.

  District Area Population 110px   District Area Population
Autonomous Regions
Autonomous Region Area Population
2,333 km2 (901 sq mi) 246,772
801 km2 (309 sq mi) 267,785

Foreign relations Edit

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A member state of the United Nations since 1955, Portugal is also a founding member of NATO (1949), OECD (1961) and EFTA (1960); it left the last in 1986 to join the European Economic Community, which became the European Union in 1993.

In 1996, Portugal co-founded the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language. The global headquarters of the CPLP is in Penafiel Palace, in Lisbon.

António Guterres, who has served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015, assumed the post of UN Secretary-General on 1 January 2017; making him the first Secretary-General from Western Europe since Kurt Waldheim of Austria (1972–1981), the first former head of government to become Secretary-General and the first Secretary-General born after the establishment of the United Nations on 26 June 1945.

In addition, Portugal is a full member of the Latin Union (1983) and the Organization of Ibero-American States (1949). It has a friendship alliance and dual citizenship treaty with its former colony, Brazil. Portugal and the United Kingdom of Great Britain share the world's oldest active military accord through their Anglo-Portuguese Alliance (Treaty of Windsor), which was signed in 1373.

There are two international territorial disputes, both with Spain:


Military Edit




Branches of the Portuguese Armed Forces
Portuguese Army
Chaimite V-200
Portuguese Navy
Portuguese Air Force
F-16 Fighting Falcon


In the 20th century, Portugal engaged in two major conflicts: World War I and the Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974). After the end of the Portuguese Empire in 1975, the Portuguese Armed Forces have participated in peacekeeping missions in East Timor, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq (Nasiriyah), Lebanon, Mali[58] and Central African Republic.[59] Portugal also conducted several independent unilateral military operations abroad, as were the cases of the interventions of the Portuguese Armed Forces in Angola in 1992 and in Guinea-Bissau in 1998 with the main objectives of protecting and withdrawing of Portuguese and foreign citizens threatened by local civil conflicts.

Government finance Edit

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The Portuguese government is heavily indebted, and received a 78 billion euro bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in May 2011.[60] The ratio of Portugal's debt to its overall economy, was 107 percent when it received the bailout.[60] As part of the deal, the country agreed to cut its budget deficit from 9.8 percent of GDP in 2010 to 5.9 percent in 2011, 4.5 percent in 2012 and 3 percent in 2013.[61]

After the bailout was announced, the Portuguese government headed by Pedro Passos Coelho managed to implement measures with the intention of improving the state's financial situation, including tax hikes, a freeze of civil service-related lower-wages and cuts of higher-wages by 14.3%, on top of the government's spending cuts. The Portuguese government also agreed to eliminate its golden share in Portugal Telecom which gave it veto power over vital decisions.[62][63] In 2012, all public servants had already seen an average wage cut of 20% relative to their 2010 baseline, with cuts reaching 25% for those earning more than 1,500 euro per month.[64]

The IMF, the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB) said in September 2012 that Portugal's debt would peak at 124 percent of gross domestic product in 2014.[65] The IMF previously said in July 2012 that Portugal's debt would peak at about 118.5 percent of GDP in 2013.[65] In September 2013, the Portuguese Government reviewed again the public debt of Portugal for 2013 to 127.8 percent, after a peak of 130.9 percent in that month.[66]


After the financial crisis of 2007–08, it was known in 2008–2009 that two Portuguese banks (Banco Português de Negócios (BPN) and Banco Privado Português (BPP)) had been accumulating losses for years due to bad investments, embezzlement and accounting fraud. The case of BPN was particularly serious because of its size, market share, and the political implications – Portugal's then President, Cavaco Silva and some of his political allies, maintained personal and business relationships with the bank and its CEO, who was eventually charged and arrested for fraud and other crimes.[69][70][71] On grounds of avoiding a potentially serious financial crisis in the Portuguese economy, the Portuguese government decided to give them a bailout, eventually at a future loss to taxpayers and to the Portuguese people in general.

Economy Edit

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Portugal is a developed and a high income country, with a GDP per capita of 77% of the EU28 average in 2017 (increasing from 75% in 2012)[72] and a HDI of 0.843 (the 41st highest) in 2016.[73] By the end of 2018, Portugal's GDP (PPP) was $32,554 per capita, according to OECD's report.[74] The national currency of Portugal is the euro (€), which replaced the Portuguese Escudo, and the country was one of the original member states of the eurozone. Portugal's central bank is the Banco de Portugal, an integral part of the European System of Central Banks. Most industries, businesses and financial institutions are concentrated in the Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas – the Setúbal, Aveiro, Braga, Coimbra and Leiria districts are the biggest economic centres outside these two main areas. According to World Travel Awards, Portugal was Europe's Leading Golf Destination in 2012 and 2013.[75][76]

File:Avenida da Liberdade (22344060581) (cropped).jpg

Since the Carnation Revolution of 1974, which culminated in the end of one of Portugal's most notable phases of economic expansion (that started in the 1960s),[77] a significant change has occurred in the nation's annual economic growth.[78] After the turmoil of the 1974 revolution and the PREC period, Portugal tried to adapt to a changing modern global economy, a process that continues in 2013. Since the 1990s, Portugal's public consumption-based economic development model has been slowly changing to a system that is focused on exports, private investment and the development of the high-tech sector. Consequently, business services have overtaken more traditional industries such as textiles, clothing, footwear and cork (Portugal is the world's leading cork producer),[79] wood products and beverages.[80]

File:November 2011 Austerity Protest in Lisbon, Portugal.JPG

In the second decade of the 21st century, the Portuguese economy suffered its most severe recession since the 1970s, resulting in the country having to be bailed out by the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). The bailout, agreed to in 2011, required Portugal to enter into a range of austerity measures in exchange for funding support of €78,000,000,000. In May 2014, the country exited the bailout but reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining its reformist momentum. At the time of exiting the bailout, the economy had contracted by 0.7% in the first quarter of 2014; however, unemployment, while still high, had fallen to 15.3%.[81]

The average salary in Portugal is €910 per month, excluding self-employed individuals[82] and the minimum wage, which is regulated by law, is €580 per month (paid 14 times per annum).

The Global Competitiveness Report for 2014–2015, published by the World Economic Forum, placed Portugal on the 36th position on the economic index.

The Economist Intelligence Unit's quality of life index placed Portugal as the country with the 19th-best quality of life in the world for 2005, ahead of other economically and technologically advanced countries like France, Germany, the United Kingdom and South Korea, but 9 places behind its sole neighbor, Spain.[83] This is despite the fact that Portugal remains as one of the countries with the lowest per capita GDP in Western Europe.[84]

File:Gold Reserves.png

Major state-owned companies include: Águas de Portugal (water), Caixa Geral de Depósitos (banking), Comboios de Portugal (railways), Companhia das Lezírias (agriculture) and RTP (media). Some former state-owned entities are managed by state-run holding company Parpública, which is a shareholder of several public and private companies.[citation needed] Among former state-owned companies recently privatised are: CTT (postal service), TAP Portugal (airline) and ANA (airports).

Companies listed on Euronext Lisbon stock exchange like EDP, Galp, Jerónimo Martins, Mota-Engil, Novabase, Semapa, Portucel Soporcel, Portugal Telecom and Sonae, are amongst the largest corporations of Portugal by number of employees, net income or international market share. The Euronext Lisbon is the major stock exchange of Portugal and is part of the NYSE Euronext, the first global stock exchange. The PSI-20 is Portugal's most selective and widely known stock index.

The International Monetary Fund issued an update report on the economy of Portugal in late-June 2017 with a strong near-term outlook and an increase in investments and exports over previous years. Because of a surplus in 2016, the country was no longer bound by the Excessive Deficit Procedure which had been implemented during an earlier financial crisis. The banking system was more stable, although there were still non-performing loans and corporate debt. The IMF recommended working on solving these problems for Portugal to be able to attract more private investment. "Sustained strong growth, together with continued public debt reduction, would reduce vulnerabilities arising from high indebtedness, particularly when monetary accommodation is reduced."[85]

Primary sector Edit

File:Campilhas March 2015-1a.jpg

Agriculture in Portugal is based on small to medium-sized family-owned dispersed units. However, the sector also includes larger scale intensive farming export-oriented agrobusinesses backed by companies (like Grupo RAR's Vitacress, Sovena, Lactogal, Vale da Rosa, Companhia das Lezírias and Valouro). The country produces a wide variety of crops and livestock products, including: tomatoes, citrus, green vegetables, rice, wheat, barley, maize, olives, oilseeds, nuts, cherries, bilberry, table grapes, edible mushrooms, dairy products, poultry and beef.


File:Tombstone of a Wine Maker, Museu de Évora - Apr 2011.jpg

Traditionally a sea-power, Portugal has had a strong tradition in the Portuguese fishing sector and is one of the countries with the highest fish consumption per capita.[86] The main landing sites in Portugal (including Azores and Madeira), according to total landings in weight by year, are the harbours of Matosinhos, Peniche, Olhão, Sesimbra, Figueira da Foz, Sines, Portimão and Madeira. Portuguese-processed fish products are exported through several companies, under a number of different brands and registered trademarks, such as Ramirez, the world's oldest active canned fish producer.

Portugal is a significant European minerals producer and is ranked among Europe's leading copper producers. The nation is also a notable producer of tin, tungsten and uranium. However, the country lacks the potential to conduct hydrocarbon exploration and aluminium, a limitation that has hindered the development of Portugal's mining and metallurgy sectors. Although the country has vast iron and coal reserves – mainly in the north – after the 1974 revolution and the consequent economic globalization, low competitiveness forced a decrease in the extraction activity for these minerals. The Panasqueira and Neves-Corvo mines are among the most recognised Portuguese mines that are still in operation.[87]

Portugal is rich in its lithium subsoil, which is especially concentrated in the districts of Guarda, Viseu, Vila Real and Viana do Castelo, while most of the country's lithium comes from the Gonçalo aplite-pegmatite field. The largest lithium mine in Europe is operated by Grupo Mota, Felmica, in the Guarda region, which is estimated to have reserves for 30 years of production. It has 5 more deposits in its possession.[88][89][90] Savannah Resources in May 2018 announced a 52% increase in the estimated lithium resources at the Mina do Barroso Lithium Project in northern Portugal, saying the country could become the first European supplier of spodumene, a lithium-bearing mineral.[91] The company said the estimated mineral resources at the mine now stood at 14 million tonnes. Lithium prices have risen in expectation of growing demand for the mineral, which is used in batteries for electric vehicles and for storing electricity from the power grid. Europe consumes more than 20 per cent of the global supply of battery-grade lithium but currently has to import all its supplies of the mineral.[92]

W Resources stated in 2018 that it had started a new drilling campaign at its São Martinho gold project in Portugal. The so-called reverse circulation drilling program included 15 holes with around 2,000 metres of total drilling. The objective is to extend resources by integrating the data from 2016 drilling results with the expansion expected with the ongoing campaign.[93][94][95]

Secondary sector Edit

File:F. Portucel Soporcel.jpg

Industry is diversified, ranging from automotive (Volkswagen Autoeuropa and Peugeot Citroën), aerospace (Embraer and OGMA), electronics and textiles, to food, chemicals, cement and wood pulp. Volkswagen Group's AutoEuropa motor vehicle assembly plant in Palmela is among the largest foreign direct investment projects in Portugal. Modern non-traditional technology-based industries, such as aerospace, biotechnology and information technology, have been developed in several locations across the country. Alverca, Covilhã,[96] Évora,[97] and Ponte de Sor are the main centres of the Portuguese aerospace industry, which is led by Brazil-based company Embraer and the Portuguese company OGMA. Following the turn of the 21st century, many major biotechnology and information technology industries have been founded, and are concentrated in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Coimbra and Aveiro.[citation needed]

Tertiary sector Edit

Left-to-right: A view of Estoril, Cascais, in Portuguese Riviera; a view of Nazaré, in Estremadura; the canals of Aveiro, in Beira Litoral; Pena National Palace, in Sintra.


Travel and tourism continue to be extremely important for Portugal. It has been necessary for the country to focus upon its niche attractions, such as health, nature and rural tourism, to stay ahead of its competitors.[99]

Portugal is among the top 20 most-visited countries in the world, receiving an average of 20,000,000 foreign tourists each year.[100] In 2014, Portugal was elected The Best European Country by the USA Today.[101]

In 2017, Portugal was elected both Europe's Leading Destination[102] and World's Leading Destination[103]

Tourist hotspots in Portugal are: Lisbon, Cascais, Fatima, Algarve, Madeira, Porto and Coimbra. Lisbon attracts the sixteenth-most tourists among European cities[104] (with seven million tourists occupying the city's hotels in 2006).[105]

Also, between 5–6 million religious pilgrims visit Fatima each year, where apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three shepherd children reportedly took place in 1917. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima is one of the largest Roman Catholic shrines in the world. The Portuguese government continues to promote and develop new tourist destinations, such as the Douro Valley, the island of Porto Santo, and Alentejo.

The legend of the Rooster of Barcelos tells the story of a dead rooster's miraculous intervention in proving the innocence of a man who had been falsely accused and sentenced to death. The story is associated with the 17th-century calvary that is part of the collection of the Archeological Museum located in Paço dos Condes, a gothic-style palace in Barcelos, a city in northwest Portugal. The Rooster of Barcelos is bought by thousands of tourists as a souvenir.

On 30 November 2016, the United Nations added the Portuguese Bisalhães tradition of making black pottery to the UNESCO Heritage Protection List.[106] On 7 December 2017, the United Nations added the Bonecos de EstremozToys of Estremoz tradition as an UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humankind.[107]

Quaternary sectorEdit


The International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, created in 2005, is based in Braga.
The Observatório Astronómico de Lisboa is Portugal's oldest (1878) astronomical observatory.
The Champalimaud Foundation, in Lisbon, is one of the world's leading cancer research centers.






Portugal has the largest aquarium in Europe, the Lisbon Oceanarium, and the Portuguese have several other notable organizations focused on science-related exhibits and divulgation, like the state agency Ciência Viva, a programme of the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology to the promotion of a scientific and technological culture among the Portuguese population,[108] the Science Museum of the University of Coimbra, the National Museum of Natural History at the University of Lisbon, and the Visionarium. With the emergence and growth of several science parks throughout the world that helped create many thousands of scientific, technological and knowledge-based businesses, Portugal started to develop several[109] science parks across the country. These include the Taguspark (in Oeiras), the Coimbra iParque (in Coimbra), the biocant (in Cantanhede), the Madeira Tecnopolo[110] (in Funchal), Sines Tecnopolo[111] (in Sines), Tecmaia[112] (in Maia) and Parkurbis[113] (in Covilhã). Companies locate in the Portuguese science parks to take advantage of a variety of services ranging from financial and legal advice through to marketing and technological support.



Transport Edit


The Tagus's Vasco da Gama Bridge is Europe's longest.
The Lisbon Metro is Portugal's oldest and largest subway system



Although a few other tracts were created (around 1960 and 1970), it was only after the beginning of the 1980s that large-scale motorway construction was implemented. In 1972, Brisa, the highway concessionaire, was founded to handle the management of many of the region's motorways. On many highways, a toll needs to be paid (see Via Verde). Vasco da Gama bridge is the longest bridge in Europe at 12,345 km.[115][116]

Continental Portugal's 89,015 km2 (34,369 sq mi) territory is serviced by four international airports located near the principal cities of Lisbon, Porto, Faro and Beja. Lisbon's geographical position makes it a stopover for many foreign airlines at several airports within the country. The primary flag-carrier is TAP Air Portugal, although many other domestic airlines provide services within and without the country. The government decided to build a new airport outside Lisbon, in Alcochete, to replace Lisbon Portela Airport, though this plan has been suspended due to austerity measures. Currently, the most important airports are in Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Funchal (Madeira), and Ponta Delgada (Azores), managed by the national airport authority group ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal. One other important airport is the Aeroporto Internacional das Lajes on the island of Terceira in the Azores. This airport serves as one of two international airports serving countries outside the European Union for all nine islands of the Azores. It also serves as a military air base for the United States Air Force. The base remains in use to the present day.

A national railway system that extends throughout the country and into Spain, is supported and administered by Comboios de Portugal (CP). Rail transport of passengers and goods is derived using the 2,791 km (1,734 mi) of railway lines currently in service, of which 1,430 km (889 mi) are electrified and about 900 km (559 mi) allow train speeds greater than 120 km/h (75 mph). The railway network is managed by Infraestruturas de Portugal while the transport of passengers and goods are the responsibility of CP, both public companies. In 2006, the CP carried 133,000,000 passengers and 9,750,000 tonnes (9,600,000 long tons; 10,700,000 short tons) of goods.

The major seaports are located in Sines, Lisbon, Leixões, Setúbal, Aveiro, Figueira da Foz, and Faro.

The two largest metropolitan areas have subway systems: Lisbon Metro and Metro Sul do Tejo in the Lisbon metropolitan area and Porto Metro in the Porto Metropolitan Area, each with more than 35 km (22 mi) of lines. In Portugal, Lisbon tram services have been supplied by the Companhia de Carris de Ferro de Lisboa (Carris), for over a century. In Porto, a tram network, of which only a tourist line on the shores of the Douro remains, began construction on 12 September 1895 (a first for the Iberian Peninsula). All major cities and towns have their own local urban transport network, as well as taxi services.

Energy Edit


Solar farms in Madeira (top) and Alqueva Hydroelectric Dam (bottom)

</div> Portugal has considerable resources of wind and river power, the two most cost-effective renewable energy sources. Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a trend towards the development of a renewable resource industry and reduction of both consumption and use of fossil fuels. In 2006, the world's largest solar power plant at that date, the Moura Photovoltaic Power Station, began operating near Moura, in the south, while the world's first commercial wave power farm, the Aguçadoura Wave Farm, opened in the Norte region (2008). By the end of 2006, 66% of the country's electrical production was from coal and fuel power plants, while 29% were derived from hydroelectric dams, and 6% by wind energy.[117]

In 2008, renewable energy resources were producing 43% of the nation's consumption of electricity, even as hydroelectric production decreased with severe droughts.[118] As of June 2010, electricity exports had outnumbered imports. In the period between January and May 2010, 70% of the national production of energy came from renewable sources.[119]


Demographics Edit


Young people in traditional attire from Minho (top) and fadistas playing at Jerónimos Monastery (bottom)

</div> The Statistics Portugal (Template:Lang-pt) estimates that, according to the 2011 census, the population was 10,562,178 (of which 52% was female, 48% was male). In 2018 and according to more up-to-date figures, the population decreased to 10,276,617.[120] This population has been relatively homogeneous for most of its history: a single religion (Roman Catholicism) and a single language have contributed to this ethnic and national unity, namely after the expulsion of the Moors and Jews.[121] A number of those minorities nevertheless, stayed in Portugal after converting to Catholicism, becoming known as Mouriscos and Marranos or more commonly Cristãos Novos (New Christians). A small number of former Jews may have continued to observe rabbinic Judaism in secret over many generations, namely the Jews of Belmonte, a small town in the interior; where now people observe the Jewish faith openly. After 1772 the distinction between Old and New Christians was abolished by decree. Some famous Portuguese New Christians were the mathematician Pedro Nunes and the physician and naturalist Garcia de Orta. Another interesting demographic feature relates to the Scandinavian expansion towards the West and strong activity in Northern Portugal where some coastline communities kept Scandinavian ancestry in Aveiro, Porto and Braga regions.

The most important demographic influence in the modern Portuguese seems to be the oldest one; current interpretation of Y-chromosome and mtDNA data suggests that the Portuguese have their origin in Paleolithic peoples that began arriving to the European continent around 45,000 years ago. All subsequent migrations did leave an impact, genetically and culturally, but the main population source of the Portuguese is still Paleolithic. Genetic studies show Portuguese populations not to be significantly different from other European populations.[122] Portuguese people have a preponderancy of Iberian genetics (Iron Age Period)[123] which belong to R1b haplogroup family alongside with Brythonic, Alpine and Goidelic genetical markers. Also expectable but not so common are South European (Sardinian, Italian and Balkans), Broadly Northwestern (West Germanic) and to a lesser extent British/Irish (Brythonic/Gaelic) and French (Alpine). With a low confidence range there are Scandinavian and East European genetical markers.[123] Other sources would point out a small presence of Berber and Jewish that would be also part of a low confidence region.[124]

Native Portuguese are an Iberian ethnic group and they form 95% of the whole population,whose ancestry is very similar to Spaniards and have strong ties with fellow Atlantic Arc countries like Ireland, British Isles, France and Belgium due to maritime trade dated as far back as the Bronze Age. These maritime contacts and the prevalence of R1b haplogroup as the main genetical marker of these countries suggest a common ancestry and cultural proximity. Other maritime contacts with the Mediterranean specially with Greeks, Romans, Moors, and Phoenicians add particular cultural phenotypes in Southern Portugal and Southern Spain (Tartessos culture) making Portugal and Northwestern Spain a bridge between North Western Europe and the Mediterranean but maintaining the Atlantic character.

Despite the good economic development in the past three decades the Portuguese were the shortest in Europe since 1890. This emerging height gap took place in the 1840s and has increased since. One of the driving factors was the modest real wage development, given the late industrialization and economic growth in Portugal compared to the European core. Another determinant was the retarded human capital formation. [125]

File:Bevölkerungspyramide Portugal 2016.png

The total fertility rate (TFR) as of 2015 was estimated at 1.52 children born/woman, one of the lowest in the world, which is below the replacement rate of 2.1,[126] it remains considerably below the high of 5.02 children born per woman in 1911.[127] In 2016, 52.8% of births were to unmarried women.[128] Like most Western countries, Portugal has to deal with low fertility levels: the country has experienced a sub-replacement fertility rate since the 1980s.[129] Portugal subsequently has the 17th oldest population in the world, with the average age of 43.7 years.[130]

The structure of Portuguese society is characterised by a significant inequality which in 2016 placed the country in the lowest seventh of the Social Justice Index for the European Union.[131]

Portugal's parliament in 2018 approved a budget plan for 2019 that includes tax breaks for returning emigrants in a bid to lure back those who left during the global financial crisis that hit the country. The expansionary 2019 budget, backed by a left-wing majority in parliament, also aims to boost the purchasing power of households while cutting the already low deficit even further. Returning emigrants will be allowed to declare only half their taxable income for five years if they return, provided they lived abroad for at least three years. The “Return Programme” is to run for two years. Around 500,000 residents left Portugal between 2010 and 2015 in the wake of the global financial crisis. Although some 350,000 have since returned, Lisbon wants to tempt the rest to come home – in a similar scheme to the Irish one[132] – as Portugal struggles with a low birth rate and an ageing population. According to projections by the national statistics office, Portugal's population will fall to 7.7 million by 2080 from 10.3 million now.[133]

In the meantime, Portugal has approved a credit line for Portuguese emigrants aiming to invest in the country on their return. Furthermore, Emigrants returning in 2019 and 2020 will see their taxes halved.[134]

Urbanization Edit

Template:Largest cities of Portugal

Metropolitan areas Edit


File:Densidade populacional por concelho - INE 2001.png

There are two Greater Metropolitan Areas (GAMs): Lisbon and Porto.[136] The following is a list of those with mainland Functional Urban Areas (FUA). Template:Electiontable |- style="background: #efefef;" !align=right| Rank !align=left| City name !align=left| Metro
Area !align=left| Population[137] !align=left| Subregion !align=left| Population !align=center|FUA Population
2013 |- style="text-align:right;" |1 ||align=left| Lisbon || align=left| Lisbon|| 2,821,699 || align=left| Grande Lisboa || 2,042,326 ||align=center|2,818,000 |- style="text-align:right;" |2||align=left| Porto || align=left| Porto|| 1,758,531 || align=left| Grande Porto || 1,401,805||align=center|1,295,000 |- style="text-align:right;" |3 ||align=left| Braga || align=left| Minho||814,083 || align=left| Cávado || 410,149||align=center|249,000 |- style="text-align:right;" |4 ||align=left| Aveiro || align=left| Aveiro || 461,819 || align=left| Baixo Vouga || 390,840||align=center|141,084 |- style="text-align:right;" |5 ||align=left| Faro || align=left| Algarve ||451,005 || align=left| Algarve || 451,005||align=center|118,000 |- style="text-align:right;" |6 ||align=left| Coimbra || align=left| Coimbra||422,708 || align=left| Baixo Mondego || 332,306||align=center|274,000 |- style="text-align:right;" |7 ||align=left| Viseu || align=left| Viseu || 338,229 || align=left| Dão-Lafões || 277,216 ||align=center|98,778 |}

Regions by HDI Edit

File:Regions of Portugal by HDI (2017).svg

This is a list of NUTS2 statistical regions of Portugal by Human Development Index as of 2017.[138]

Rank Province HDI (2017)[139]
Very high human development
1 Lisbon metropolitan area0.886
23x15px Portugal (average) 0.847
2 Centro 0.840
3 Algarve0.831
Norte 0.831
5 Alentejo0.823
6 Madeira0.800
High human development
7 Azores0.795

Immigration Edit

In 2007, Portugal had 10,617,575 inhabitants of whom about 332,137 were legal immigrants.[140] In 2015, Portugal had 10,341,330 inhabitants of whom about 383,759 were legal migrants, making up 3.7% of the population.[141] In 2017, Portugal had 416,682 legal residents of foreign origin, of which 203,753 identified as male, and 212,929 as female.[142]

File:COB data Portugal.PNG

Portugal's colonial history has long since been a cornerstone of its national identity, as has its geographic position at the south-western corner of Europe, looking out into the Atlantic Ocean. It was one of the last western colonial European powers to give up its overseas territories (among them Angola and Mozambique in 1975), turning over the administration of Macau to the People's Republic of China at the end of 1999. Consequently, it has both influenced and been influenced by cultures from former colonies or dependencies, resulting in immigration from these former territories for both economic and personal reasons. Portugal, long a country of emigration (the vast majority of Brazilians have Portuguese ancestry),[143] has now become a country of net immigration,[144] and not just from the last Indian (Portuguese until 1961), African (Portuguese until 1975), and Far East Asian (Portuguese until 1999) overseas territories. An estimated 800,000 Portuguese returned to Portugal as the country's African possessions gained independence in 1975.[143]

Since the 1990s, along with a boom in construction, several new waves of Ukrainian, Brazilian, Lusophone Africans and other Africans have settled in the country. Romanian, Moldovans, Kosovar and Chinese have also migrated to the country. Portugal's Romani population is estimated to be at about 40,000.[145] Numbers of Venezuelan, Pakistani and Indian migrants are also significant.

In addition, a number of EU citizens, mostly from the United Kingdom, other northern European or Nordic countries, have become permanent residents in the country (with the British community being mostly composed of retired pensioners who live in the Algarve and Madeira).[146]

Religion Edit

Religions in Portugal (Census 2011)[147]
Roman Catholicism
Other Christianity
No Religion

According to the 2011 Census, 81.0% of the Portuguese population is Roman Catholic.[148] The country has small Protestant, Latter-day Saint, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Eastern Orthodox Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, Baha'i, Buddhist, Jewish and Spiritist communities. Influences from African Traditional Religion and Chinese Traditional Religion are also felt among many people, particularly in fields related with Traditional Chinese Medicine and African Witch Doctors. Some 6.8% of the population declared themselves to be non-religious, and 8.3% did not give any answer about their religion.[149]



The Christ the King Sanctuary and the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal are two of the world's most visited Catholic pilgrimage sites.



Portugal is a secular state: church and state were formally separated during the Portuguese First Republic, and later reiterated in the 1976 Portuguese Constitution. Other than the Constitution, the two most important documents relating to religious freedom in Portugal are the 1940 Concordata (later amended in 1971) between Portugal and the Holy See and the 2001 Religious Freedom Act.

Languages Edit

File:Map of the portuguese language in the world.png

Portuguese is the official language of Portugal. Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Northern Portugal, originating from Galician-Portuguese which was the common language of the Galician and Portuguese people until the formation of Portugal while others will be Portunol - a mixture of Portuguese language and Spanish language near the Spain border and also in Brazil-Uruguay border located south of Brazil and north of Uruguay in the South America. There are still many similarities between the Galician culture and the Portuguese culture. Galicia is a consultative observer of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

The Portuguese language is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago – particularly the Celts, Tartessians, Lusitanians and Iberians. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the language spread worldwide as Portugal established a colonial and commercial empire between 1415 and 1999.[150] Portuguese is spoken as a native language in five different continents, with Brazil accounting for the largest number of native Portuguese speakers of any country (209,5 million speakers in 2016).[151][152] All Portuguese-speaking African countries together sum up a number of about 14 million native Portuguese speakers. [153] Template:NoteTag

In 2013 the Portuguese language is the official language spoken in Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, and East Timor. These countries, plus Macau Special Administrative Region (People's Republic of China) where Portuguese is co-official with Cantonese, make up the Lusosphere, a term derived from the ancient Roman province of "Lusitania", which currently matches the Portuguese territory south of the Douro river.[154]

Mirandese is also recognized as a co-official regional language in some municipalities of North-Eastern Portugal. An estimate of between 6,000 and 7,000 Mirandese speakers has been documented for Portugal.[155]

According to International English Proficiency Index, Portugal has a high proficiency level in English, higher than in countries like Italy, France or Spain.[156]

Education Edit

Founded in 1290, the University of Coimbra is Portugal's oldest and most prestigious, as well as one of the world's oldest universities
The University of Porto is Portugal's second largest and its leading research university.

The educational system is divided into preschool (for those under age 6), basic education (9 years, in three stages, compulsory), secondary education (3 years, compulsory since 2010), and higher education (subdivided in university and polytechnic education). Universities are usually organized into faculties. Institutes and schools are also common designations for autonomous subdivisions of Portuguese higher education institutions.

The total adult literacy rate is 99 percent. Portuguese primary school enrollments are 100 percent.

According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015, the average Portuguese 15-year-old student, when rated in terms of reading literacy, mathematics and science knowledge, is placed significantly above the OECD's average, at a similar level as those students from Norway, Poland, Denmark and Belgium, with 501 points (493 is the average). The PISA results of the Portuguese students have been continuously improving, overcoming a number of other highly developed western countries like the US, Austria, France and Sweden.[157][158]

About 40% of college-age citizens (20 years old) attend one of Portugal's higher education institutions[159][160] (compared with 50% in the United States and 35% in the OECD countries). In addition to being a destination for international students, Portugal is also among the top places of origin for international students. All higher education students, both domestic and international, totaled 380,937 in 2005.

Portuguese universities have existed since 1290. The oldest Portuguese university was first established in Lisbon before moving to Coimbra. Historically, within the scope of the Portuguese Empire, the Portuguese founded the oldest engineering school of the Americas (the Real Academia de Artilharia, Fortificação e Desenho of Rio de Janeiro) in 1792, as well as the oldest medical college in Asia (the Escola Médico-Cirúrgica of Goa) in 1842. Presently, the largest university in Portugal is the University of Lisbon.



Portugal has entered into cooperation agreements with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other US institutions to further develop and increase the effectiveness of Portuguese higher education and research.

Health Edit


St António Hospital, in Porto (above), and St Maria Hospital, in Lisbon (bottom).

</div> According to the Human Development Report, the average life expectancy in Portugal has been increasing and had reached 82 years in 2017.[161]

Portugal ranks 12th in the best public health systems in the world, ahead of highly developed countries like the United Kingdom, Germany or Sweden.[162][163]

The Portuguese health system is characterized by three coexisting systems: the National Health Service (Serviço Nacional de Saúde, SNS), special social health insurance schemes for certain professions (health subsystems) and voluntary private health insurance. The SNS provides universal coverage. In addition, about 25% of the population is covered by the health subsystems, 10% by private insurance schemes and another 7% by mutual funds.





Portugal's infant mortality rate is around 2 deaths per 1000 newborns, with 2.4 deaths per 1000 live births.

People are usually well informed about their health status, the positive and negative effects of their behaviour on their health, and their use of health care services. Yet their perceptions of their health, can differ from what administrative and examination-based data show about levels of illness within populations. Thus, survey results based on self-reporting at household level, complement other data on health status and the use of services.

Only one third of adults rated their health as good or very good in Portugal (Kasmel et al., 2004). This is the lowest of the Eur-A countries reporting and reflects the relatively adverse situation of the country in terms of mortality and selected morbidity.[164]Hospital de Santa Maria is the largest in Portugal[citation needed]

Culture Edit


Jerónimos Monastery (top) and Belém Tower (bottom) are magna opera of the Manueline style and symbols of Portuguese nationhood.


These include the Belém Cultural Centre in Lisbon, Serralves Foundation and the Casa da Música, both in Porto, as well as new public cultural facilities like municipal libraries and concert halls that were built or renovated in many municipalities across the country. Portugal is home to 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, ranking it 9th in Europe and 18th in the world.

Architecture Edit

Traditional architecture is distinctive and include the Manueline, also known as Portuguese late Gothic a sumptuous, composite Portuguese style of architectural ornamentation of the first decades of the 16th century. A 20th-century interpretation of traditional architecture, Soft Portuguese style, appears extensively in major cities, especially Lisbon. Modern Portugal has given the world renowned architects like Eduardo Souto de Moura, Álvaro Siza Vieira (both Pritzker Prize winners) and Gonçalo Byrne. In Portugal Tomás Taveira is also noteworthy, particularly for stadium design.[165][166][167]

Cinema Edit

Portuguese cinema has a long tradition, reaching back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century. António Lopes Ribeiro, António Reis, Pedro Costa, Manoel de Oliveira, João César Monteiro, Edgar Pêra, António-Pedro Vasconcelos, Fernando Lopes, João Botelho and Leonel Vieira, are among those that gained notability. Noted Portuguese film actors include Joaquim de Almeida, Nuno Lopes, Daniela Ruah, Maria de Medeiros, Diogo Infante, Soraia Chaves, Ribeirinho, Lúcia Moniz, and Diogo Morgado.

Literature Edit

Fernando Pessoa, prolific writer in 20th-century Portuguese literature

Portuguese literature, one of the earliest Western literatures, developed through text as well as song. Until 1350, the Portuguese-Galician troubadours spread their literary influence to most of the Iberian Peninsula.[168] Gil Vicente (c. 1465–c. 1536) was one of the founders of Portuguese dramatic traditions.

Adventurer and poet Luís de Camões (c. 1524–1580) wrote the epic poem Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads), with Virgil's Aeneid as his main influence.[169] Modern Portuguese poetry is rooted in neoclassic and contemporary styles, as exemplified by Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935). Modern Portuguese literature is represented by authors such as Almeida Garrett, Camilo Castelo Branco, Eça de Queirós, Fernando Pessoa, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, António Lobo Antunes and Miguel Torga. Particularly popular and distinguished is José Saramago, recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Cuisine Edit

Portuguese cuisine is diverse. The Portuguese consume a lot of dry cod (bacalhau in Portuguese), for which there are hundreds of recipes.[170] There are more than enough bacalhau dishes; over one for each day of the year. Two other popular fish recipes are grilled sardines and caldeirada, a potato-based stew that can be made from several types of fish. Typical Portuguese meat recipes made out of beef, pork, lamb, or chicken include cozido à portuguesa, feijoada, frango de churrasco, leitão (roast suckling pig) and carne de porco à alentejana. A very popular northern dish is the arroz de sarrabulho (rice stewed in pigs blood) or the arroz de cabidela (rice and chickens meat stewed in chickens blood).

File:MargaretCafe PasteisDeNata.JPG

Typical fast food dishes include the Francesinha (Frenchie) from Porto, "Tripas à moda do Porto" which is also a traditional plate from Porto, and bifanas (grilled pork) or prego (grilled beef) sandwiches, which are well known around the country. The Portuguese art of pastry has its origins in the many medieval Catholic monasteries spread widely across the country. These monasteries, using very few ingredients (mostly almonds, flour, eggs and some liquor), managed to create a spectacular wide range of different pastries, of which pastéis de Belém (or pastéis de nata) originally from Lisbon, and ovos moles from Aveiro are examples. Portuguese cuisine is very diverse, with different regions having their own traditional dishes. The Portuguese have a culture of good food, and throughout the country there are myriads of good restaurants and typical small tasquinhas.

Portuguese wines have enjoyed international recognition since the times of the Romans, who associated Portugal with their god Bacchus. Today, the country is known by wine lovers and its wines have won several international prizes. Some of the best Portuguese wines are Vinho Verde, Vinho Alvarinho, Vinho do Douro, Vinho do Alentejo, Vinho do Dão, Vinho da Bairrada and the sweet Port Wine, Madeira Wine, and the Moscatel from Setúbal and Favaios. Port and Madeira are particularly appreciated in a wide range of places around the world.

Music Edit

File:Jose malhoa fado.jpg

Portuguese music encompasses a wide variety of genres. The traditional one is the Portuguese folk music which has deep roots in local customs having as instruments bagpipes, drums, flutes, tambourines, accordions and small guitars (cavaquinho). Within Portuguese folk music is the renowned genre of Fado, a melancholic urban music originated in Lisbon in the 19th century, probably inside bohemian environments, usually associated with the Portuguese guitar and saudade, or longing. Coimbra fado, a unique type of "troubadour serenading" fado, is also noteworthy. Internationally notable performers include Amália Rodrigues, Carlos Paredes, José Afonso, Mariza, Carlos do Carmo, António Chainho, Mísia, Dulce Pontes and Madredeus.


File:AmaliaRodrigues1969 (cropped).jpg

In addition to Folk, Fado and Classical music, other genres are present at Portugal like pop and other types of modern music, particularly from North America and the United Kingdom, as well as a wide range of Portuguese, Caribbean, Lusophone African and Brazilian artists and bands. Artists with international recognition include Dulce Pontes, Moonspell, Buraka Som Sistema, Blasted Mechanism, David Carreira and The Gift, with the three latter being nominees for a MTV Europe Music Award.

Portugal has several summer music festivals, such as Festival Sudoeste in Zambujeira do Mar, Festival de Paredes de Coura in Paredes de Coura, Festival Vilar de Mouros near Caminha, Boom Festival in Idanha-a-Nova Municipality, NOS Alive, Sumol Summer Fest in Ericeira, Rock in Rio Lisboa and Super Bock Super Rock in Greater Lisbon. Out of the summer season, Portugal has a large number of festivals, designed more to an urban audience, like Flowfest or Hip Hop Porto. Furthermore, one of the largest international Goa trance festivals takes place in central Portugal every two years, the Boom Festival, that is also the only festival in Portugal to win international awards: European Festival Award 2010 – Green'n'Clean Festival of the Year and the Greener Festival Award Outstanding 2008 and 2010. There is also the student festivals of Queima das Fitas are major events in a number of cities across Portugal. In 2005, Portugal held the MTV Europe Music Awards, in Pavilhão Atlântico, Lisbon. Furthermore, Portugal won the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Kiev with the song "Amar pelos dois" presented by Salvador Sobral, and subsequently hosted the 2018 contest at the Altice Arena in Lisbon.[171][172]

Visual arts Edit

File:A Adoração dos Magos (1828) - Domingos Sequeira.png

Portugal has a rich history in painting. The first well-known painters date back to the 15th century – like Nuno Gonçalves – were part of the late Gothic painting period. During the renaissance Portuguese painting was highly influenced by north European painting. In the Baroque period Joana d'Obidos and Vieira Lusitano were the most prolific painters. José Malhoa, known for his work Fado, and Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro (who painted the portraits of Teófilo Braga and Antero de Quental) were both references in naturalist painting.

The 20th century saw the arrival of Modernism, and along with it came the most prominent Portuguese painters: Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, who was heavily influenced by French painters, particularly the Delaunays (Robert and Sonia). Among his best-known works is Canção Popular a Russa e o Fígaro. Another great modernist painters/writers were Carlos Botelho and Almada Negreiros, friend to the poet Fernando Pessoa, who painted Pessoa's portrait. He was deeply influenced by both Cubist and Futurist trends.


Sport Edit

File:IRNPOR match 2018 FIFA World Cup 11 (cropped).jpg

Football is the most popular sport in Portugal. There are several football competitions ranging from local amateur to world-class professional level. The legendary Eusébio is still a major symbol of Portuguese football history. FIFA World Player of the Year winners Luís Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo, who won the FIFA Ballon d'Or, are two world-class Portuguese football players. Portuguese football managers are also noteworthy, with José Mourinho being among the most renowned.

The Portugal national football team – Seleção Nacional – have won one UEFA European Championship title: the UEFA Euro 2016, with a 1–0 victory in the final over France, the tournament hosts. In addition, Portugal finished first in the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League with a 1–0 win over the Netherlands in the final (held in Portugal), second in the Euro 2004 (also held in Portugal), third in the 1966 FIFA World Cup and 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, and fourth in the 2006 FIFA World Cup. At youth level, Portugal have won two FIFA World Youth Championships (in 1989 and 1991) and several UEFA European Youth Championships.

S.L. Benfica, Sporting CP and FC Porto are the largest sports clubs by popularity and by number of trophies won, often known as "os três grandes" ("the big three"). They have won eight titles in the European UEFA club competitions, were present in 21 finals and have been regular contenders in the last stages almost every season. Other than football, many Portuguese sports clubs, including the "big three", compete in several other sports events with a varying level of success and popularity, these may include roller hockey, basketball, futsal, handball, and volleyball. The Portuguese Football Federation (FPF)  – Federação Portuguesa de Futebol – annually hosts the Algarve Cup, a prestigious women's football tournament that has been celebrated in the Algarvian part of Portugal.

The Portuguese national rugby union team qualified for the 2007 Rugby World Cup and the Portuguese national rugby sevens team has played in the World Rugby Sevens Series.

File:Nélson Évora 2015.jpg

In athletics, the Portuguese have won a number of gold, silver and bronze medals in the European, World and Olympic Games competitions. Cycling, with Volta a Portugal being the most important race, is also a popular sports event and include professional cycling teams such as Sporting CP, Boavista, Clube de Ciclismo de Tavira and União Ciclista da Maia. At international level, Portuguese cyclists have already achieved good results. Joaquim Agostinho finished on the podium in 1978 and 1979 Tour de France, and 1974 Vuelta a España. Rui Costa has won the world title in the men's road race.

The country has also achieved notable performances in sports like fencing, judo, kitesurf, rowing, sailing, surfing, shooting, taekwondo, triathlon and windsurf, owning several European and world titles. The paralympic athletes have also conquered many medals in sports like swimming, boccia, athletics and wrestling.


In equestrian sports, Portugal won the only Horseball-Pato World Championship in 2006 achieved the third position in the First Horseball World Cup and has achieved several victories in the European Working Equitation Championship.

In water sports, Portugal has three major sports: swimming, water polo and surfing. Most recently, Portugal had success in canoeing with several world and European champions, such as olympic medalists. Annually, the country also hosts one of the stages of the World Surf League Men's Championship Tour, the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal in the Supertubos beach in Peniche.

Northern Portugal has its own original martial art, Jogo do Pau, in which the fighters use staffs to confront one or several opponents. Other popular sport-related recreational outdoor activities with thousands of enthusiasts nationwide include airsoft, fishing, golf, hiking, hunting and orienteering.

Portugal is one of the world's best golf destinations.[174] It has received several awards by the World Golf Awards.[175]

See also Edit

Notes Edit


References Edit

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External links Edit

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