Jump to content

Portal:Portugal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome to the Portugal portal

Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, overlooking the Tagus river
Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, overlooking the Tagus river

Flag of Portugal
Location of Portugal in Europe

Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country in the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring the westernmost point in continental Europe, to its north and east is Spain, with which it shares the longest uninterrupted border in the European Union; to the south and the west is the North Atlantic Ocean; and to the west and southwest lie the Macaronesian archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, which are two autonomous regions of Portugal. Lisbon is the capital and largest city, followed by Porto, which is the only other metropolitan area.

Founded in 1143, with its current borders established in 1297, Portugal is the oldest nation state in Europe and among the oldest in the world. Its territory has been continuously inhabited since prehistoric times, with the earliest signs of settlement dating to 5500 BCE. Celtic and Iberian peoples arrived in the first millennium BCE, with Phoenician and later Punic influence reaching the south during the same period. The region came under Roman control in the second century BCE, followed by a succession of Germanic peoples and the Alans from the fifth to eighth centuries CE. Muslims conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century CE, but were gradually expelled by the Christian Reconquista over the next several centuries. Modern Portugal began taking shape during this period, initially as a county of the Christian Kingdom of León in 868, and ultimately as an independent Catholic kingdom with the Treaty of Zamora in 1143.

After consolidating its territorial and political integrity in 1297, the Kingdom of Portugal pioneered a series of ambitious commercial and maritime expeditions that catalyzed the Age of Discovery in the late 15th century. Portuguese supremacy in seafaring and nautical technology helped achieve the world's first global maritime empire, which spanned five continents and lasted into the late 20th century. Reaching its economic and political height in the late 16th century, Portugal faced internal divisions and growing rivalry and conflict with other European powers. The Lisbon earthquake of 1755, French occupation in 1807–1808 during the Napoleonic Wars, and the subsequent independence of Brazil in 1822 further hastened the country's decline. A civil war between liberal constitutionalists and conservative absolutists over royal succession ensued from 1828 to 1834. The 1910 revolution deposed Portugal's monarchy and established the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic, later superseded by the authoritarian regimes of Ditadura Nacional (National Dictatorship) and Estado Novo (New State). Democracy was restored after the Carnation Revolution of 1974, which also ended the Portuguese Colonial War by allowing the remaining Portuguese territories in Africa to gain independence. (Full article...)

Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Valley and Siega Verde are a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) transboundary World Heritage Site, located in the Côa Valley of Portugal and Siega Verde, Spain. (Full article...)

Featured article - show another

This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

Princess Dona Maria Amélia around age 17, c. 1849

Dona Maria Amélia (1 December 1831 – 4 February 1853) was a princess of the Empire of Brazil and a member of the Brazilian branch of the House of Braganza. Her parents were Emperor Dom Pedro I, the first ruler of Brazil, and Amélie of Leuchtenberg. The only child of her father's second marriage, Maria Amélia was born in France after Pedro I abdicated the Brazilian throne in favor of his son Dom Pedro II. Before Maria Amélia was a month old, Pedro I went to Portugal to restore the crown of the eldest daughter of his first marriage, Dona Maria II. He fought a successful war against his brother Miguel I, who had usurped Maria II's throne.

Only a few months after his victory, Pedro I died from tuberculosis. Maria Amélia's mother took her to Portugal, where she remained for most of her life without ever visiting Brazil. The Brazilian government refused to recognize Maria Amélia as a member of Brazil's Imperial House because she was foreign-born, but when her elder half-brother Pedro II was declared of age in 1840, he successfully intervened on her behalf. (Full article...)

General images

The following are images from various Portugal-related articles on Wikipedia.

Selected quote - show another

"Be plural like the universe!"

Sê plural, como o Universo!
Fernando Pessoa, poet

Good article - show another

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

Fernão Pires de Andrade (also spelled as Fernão Peres de Andrade; in contemporary sources, Fernam (Fernã) Perez Dandrade) (d. 1552) was a Portuguese merchant, pharmacist, and diplomat who worked under the explorer and colonial administrator Afonso de Albuquerque. His encounter with Ming China in 1517—after initial contacts by Jorge Álvares and Rafael Perestrello in 1513 and 1516, respectively—marked the resumption of direct European commercial and diplomatic contact with China. (Even though there were Europeans in Medieval China, notably Marco Polo, that period of contact had been interrupted by the fall of the Yuan dynasty.)

Although de Andrade's mission was initially a success that allowed a Portuguese embassy to proceed all the way to Beijing, relations were soon spoiled by culminating events that led to an extremely negative impression of the Portuguese in China. This included acts of his brother Simão that enraged the Chinese, false reports of the Portuguese being cannibals of kidnapped Chinese children and true reports of their conquest of Malacca, a loyal Ming tributary state. Normalized trade and relations between Portugal and the Ming dynasty would not resume until the late 1540s and the 1557 establishment of Portuguese rule over Macau. (Full article...)

Selected Biography - show another

Saramago in January 2008

José de Sousa Saramago GColSE GColCa (European Portuguese: [ʒuˈzɛ ðɨ ˈsozɐ sɐɾɐˈmaɣu]; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese writer. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony [with which he] continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality." His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor. In 2003 Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today" and in 2010 said he considers Saramago to be "a permanent part of the Western canon", while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant."

More than two million copies of Saramago's books have been sold in Portugal alone and his work has been translated into 25 languages. A proponent of libertarian communism, Saramago criticized institutions such as the Catholic Church, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. An atheist, he defended love as an instrument to improve the human condition. In 1992, the Government of Portugal under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva ordered the removal of one of his works, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, from the Aristeion Prize's shortlist, claiming the work was religiously offensive. Disheartened by this political censorship of his work, Saramago went into exile on the Spanish island of Lanzarote, where he lived alongside his Spanish wife Pilar del Río until his death in 2010. (Full article...)

Selected picture - show another

A Portuguese F-84 being loaded with amunition in the 60's, at the Luanda Air Base, during the Portuguese Colonial War
  • ...that Viagens Abreu is the oldest travel agency in the world and was established in Porto in 1840 by Mr. Bernardo Abreu and is still family owned five generations later?

Portugal topics

Portugal lists

Subcategories

Recognized content

Good articles

Former good articles

Did you know? articles

In the News articles

Picture of the day pictures

New articles

This list was generated from these rules. Questions and feedback are always welcome! The search is being run daily with the most recent ~14 days of results. Note: Some articles may not be relevant to this project.

Rules | Match log | Results page (for watching) | Last updated: 2024-11-08 21:39 (UTC)

Note: The list display can now be customized by each user. See List display personalization for details.
















{{{1}}}

Things you can do

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache