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| República Portuguesa
Portuguese Republic
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Anthem: "A Portuguesa" |
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 Location of Portugal (green)
– on the European continent (light green & dark grey) |
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| Capital (and largest city) |
Lisbon5 |
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| Official languages | Portuguese1 | |||||
| Recognised regional languages | Mirandese | |||||
| Demonym | Portuguese | |||||
| Government | Parliamentary republic6 | |||||
| - | President | Aníbal Cavaco Silva | ||||
| - | Prime Minister | José Sócrates | ||||
| - | Assembly President | Jaime Gama | ||||
| Formation | Conventional date for Independence is 1139 | |||||
| - | Founding | 868 | ||||
| - | Re-founding | 1095 | ||||
| - | De facto sovereignty | 24 June 1128 | ||||
| - | Kingdom | 25 July 1139 | ||||
| - | Recognized | 5 October 1143 | ||||
| - | Papal Recognition | 1179 | ||||
| EU accession | 1 January 1986 | |||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 92,345 km² (110th) 35,645 sq mi |
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| - | Water (%) | 0.5 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | 2007 estimate | 10,617,575 (77th) | ||||
| - | 2001 census | 10,355,824 | ||||
| - | Density | 114/km² (87th) 295/sq mi |
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| GDP (PPP) | 2007 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $230.834 billion[1] (43rd) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $21,778[1] (IMF) (34th) | ||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2007 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $223.447 billion[1] (30th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $21,081[1] (IMF) (31nd) | ||||
| HDI (2005) | ▼ 0.897 (high) (29th) | |||||
| Currency | Euro (€)² (EUR) |
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| Time zone | WET³ (UTC0) | |||||
| - | Summer (DST) | WEST (UTC+1) | ||||
| Internet TLD | .pt4 | |||||
| Calling code | +351 | |||||
| 1 | Mirandese, spoken in some villages of the municipality of Miranda do Douro, was officially recognized in 1999 (Lei n.° 7/99 de 29 de Janeiro), since then awarding an official right-of-use Mirandese to the linguistic minority it is concerned.[2] The Portuguese Sign Language is also recognized. | |||||
| 2 | Before 1999: Portuguese escudo. | |||||
| 3 | Azores: UTC-1; UTC in summer. | |||||
| 4 | The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states. | |||||
| 5 | Coimbra was the capital of the country from 1139 to about 1260. | |||||
| 6 | The present form of the Government was established by the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, that ended the authoritarian regime of the Estado Novo. | |||||
Portugal [ˈpɔɹtʃəgəl], officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa),[3] is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east. The Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are also part of Portugal.
The land within the borders of today's Portuguese Republic has been continuously settled since prehistoric times. Some of the earliest civilizations include Lusitanians and Celtic societies. Incorporation into the Roman Republic dominions took place in the 2nd century BC. The region was ruled and colonized by Germanic peoples, such as the Suebi and the Visigoths, from the 5th to the 8th century. From this era, some vestiges of the Alans were also found. The Muslim Moors arrived in the early 8th century and conquered the Christian Germanic kingdoms, eventually occupying most of the Iberian Peninsula. In the early 1100s, during the Christian Reconquista, Portugal appeared as a kingdom independent of its neighbour, the Kingdom of León and Galicia. In a little over a century, in 1249, Portugal would establish almost its entire modern-day borders by conquering territory from the Moors.
During the 15th and 16th centuries, with a global empire that included possessions in Africa, Asia and South America, Portugal was one of the world's major economic, political, and cultural powers. In the 17th century, the Portuguese Restoration War between Portugal and Spain ended the sixty year period of the Iberian Union (1580–1640). In the 19th century, armed conflict with French and Spanish invading forces and the loss of its largest territorial possession abroad, Brazil, disrupted political stability and potential economic growth. After the Portuguese Colonial War and the Carnation Revolution coup d'état in 1974, the ruling regime was deposed in Lisbon and the country handed over its last overseas provinces in Africa. Portugal's last overseas territory, Macau, was handed over to China in 1999.
Portugal is a developed country,[4] has a high Human Development Index and has the 19th highest quality of life in the world,[5] although having the lowest GDP per capita of Western European countries. It is a member of the European Union (since 1986) and the United Nations (since 1955); as well as a founding member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa (Community of Portuguese Language Countries, CPLP), and the European Union's Eurozone. Portugal is also a Schengen state. According to the Global Peace Index, Portugal is the 7th most peaceful country in the world.
History
The early history of Portugal, whose name derives from the Roman name Portus Cale, is shared with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula. The region was settled by Pre-Celts and Celts, giving origin to peoples like the Gallaeci, Lusitanians, Celtici and Cynetes, visited by Phoenicians and Carthaginians, incorporated in the Roman Republic dominions (as Lusitania after 45 BC), settled again by Suevi, Buri, and Visigoths, and conquered by Moors. Other minor influences include some 5th century vestiges of Alan settlement, which were found in Alenquer, Coimbra and even Lisbon.[6] In 868, during the Reconquista (by which Christians reconquered the Iberian peninsula from the Muslim and Moorish domination), the First County of Portugal was formed. A victory over the Muslims at Ourique in 1139 is traditionally taken as the occasion when Portugal is transformed from a county (County of Portugal as a fief of the Kingdom of León) into an independent kingdom - the Kingdom of Portugal.
On 24 June 1128, the Battle of São Mamede occurred near Guimarães. At the Battle of São Mamede, Afonso Henriques, Count of Portugal, defeated his mother, Countess Teresa, and her lover, Fernão Peres de Trava, in battle - thereby establishing himself as sole leader. Afonso Henriques officially declared Portugal's independence when he proclaimed himself king of Portugal on 25 July 1139, after the Battle of Ourique, he was recognized as such in 1143 by Afonso VII, king of León and Castile, and in 1179 by Pope Alexander III. Afonso Henriques and his successors, aided by military monastic orders, pushed southward to drive out the Moors, as the size of Portugal covered about half of its present area. In 1249, this Reconquista ended with the capture of the Algarve on the southern coast, giving Portugal its present day borders, with minor exceptions.
In 1373, Portugal made an alliance with England, which is the longest-standing alliance in the world.
In 1383, the king of Castile, husband of the daughter of the Portuguese king who had died without a male heir, claimed his throne. An ensuing popular revolt led to the 1383-1385 Crisis. A faction of petty noblemen and commoners, led by John of Aviz (later John I), seconded by General Nuno Álvares Pereira defeated the Castilians in the Battle of Aljubarrota. This celebrated battle is still a symbol of glory and the struggle for independence from neighboring Spain.
In the following decades, Portugal spearheaded the exploration of the world and undertook the Age of Discovery. Prince Henry the Navigator, son of King João I, became the main sponsor and patron of this endeavor.
In 1415, Portugal gained the first of its overseas colonies when a fleet conquered Ceuta, a prosperous Islamic trade center in North Africa. There followed the first discoveries in the Atlantic: Madeira and the Azores, which led to the first colonization movements.
Throughout the 15th century, Portuguese explorers sailed the coast of Africa, establishing trading posts for several common types of tradable commodities at the time, ranging from gold to slaves, as they looked for a route to India and its spices, which were coveted in Europe. In 1498, Vasco da Gama finally reached India and brought economic prosperity to Portugal and its then population of one million residents.
In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral, en route to India, discovered Brazil and claimed it for Portugal.[7] Ten years later, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa, in India, Ormuz in the Persian Strait, and Malacca in what is now a state in Malaysia. Thus, the Portuguese empire held dominion over commerce in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic. The Portuguese sailors set out to reach Eastern Asia by sailing eastward from Europe landing in such places like Taiwan, Japan, the island of Timor, and it may also have been Portuguese sailors that were the first Europeans to discover Australia.[8]
Portugal's independence was interrupted between 1580 and 1640. Because the heirless King Sebastian died in battle in Morocco, Philip II of Spain claimed his throne and so became Philip I of Portugal. Although Portugal did not lose its formal independence, it was governed by the same monarch who governed Spain, briefly forming a union of kingdoms, as a personal union; in 1640, John IV spearheaded an uprising backed by disgruntled nobles and was proclaimed king. The Portuguese Restoration War between Portugal and Spain on the aftermath of the 1640 revolt, ended the sixty-year period of the Iberian Union under the House of Habsburg. This was the beginning of the House of Braganza, which was to reign in Portugal until 1910. On 1 November 1755, Lisbon, the largest city and capital of the Portuguese Empire, was strongly shaken by an earthquake which killed thousands and destroyed a large portion of the city.
In the autumn of 1807 Napoleon moved French troops through its allied Spain to invade Portugal. From 1807 to 1811, British-Portuguese forces would successfully fight against the French invasion of Portugal.
Portugal began a slow but inexorable decline until the 20th century. This decline was hastened by the independence in 1822 of the country's largest colonial possession, Brazil. At the height of European colonialism in the 19th century, Portugal had lost its territory in South America and all but a few bases in Asia. During this phase, Portuguese colonialism focused on expanding its outposts in Africa into nation-sized territories to compete with other European powers there. Portuguese territories eventually included the modern nations of Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique.
In 1910, a revolution deposed the Portuguese monarchy, but chaos continued and considerable economic problems were aggravated by the military intervention in World War I, which led to a military coup d'état in 1926. This in turn led to the establishment of the right-wing dictatorship of the Estado Novo under António de Oliveira Salazar.
In December 1961, the Portuguese army was involved in armed action in its colony of Portuguese India against an Indian invasion. The operations resulted in the defeat of the isolated and relatively small Portuguese defense force which was not able to resist a much larger enemy. The outcome was the loss of the Portuguese territories in the Indian subcontinent.
Also in the early 1960s, independence movements in the Portuguese overseas provinces of Angola, Mozambique, and Portuguese Guinea, in Africa, resulted in the Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974). In April 1974, a bloodless left-wing military coup in Lisbon, known as the Carnation Revolution, led the way for a modern democracy as well as the independence of the last colonies in Africa shortly after. However, Portugal's last overseas territory, Macau (Asia), was not handed over to the People's Republic of China until as late as 1999.
From the 1940s to the 1960s, Portugal was a founding member of NATO, OECD and EFTA. In 1986, Portugal joined the European Union (then the European Economic Community). In 1999, Portugal was one of the founding countries of the euro and the Eurozone. It is also a co-founder of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), established in 1996 and headquartered in Lisbon.
Administrative divisions
Portugal has an administrative structure of 308 municipalities (Portuguese singular/plural: concelho/concelhos), which are subdivided into more than 4,000 parishes (freguesia/freguesias). Municipalities are grouped for administrative purposes into superior units. For continental Portugal the municipalities are gathered in 18 Districts, while the Islands have a Regional Government directly above them. Thus, the largest unit of classification is the one established since 1976 into either mainland Portugal (Portugal Continental) or the autonomous regions of Portugal (Azores and Madeira).
The 18 district capitals of mainland Portugal are: Aveiro, Beja, Braga, Bragança, Castelo Branco, Coimbra, Évora, Faro, Guarda, Leiria, Lisbon, Portalegre, Porto, Santarém, Setúbal, Viana do Castelo, Vila Real, and Viseu - each district takes the name of the district capital.
The European Union's system of Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics is also used. According to this system, Portugal is divided into 7 regions (Açores, Alentejo, Algarve, Centro, Lisboa, Madeira, and Norte), which are subdivided into 30 subregions.
Geography and climate
The climate can be classified as Mediterranean type csa in the south and csb in the north, according to the Köppen climate classification. Portugal is one of the warmest European countries, the annual temperature averages in mainland Portugal are 13 °C (55 °F) in the north and 18 °C (64 °F) in the south and it is over 20 °C (68°F) on the warmest spots, like south coast of Madeira island. The Madeira and Azores Atlantic archipelagos have a narrower temperature range. Extreme temperatures occur in the mountains of Northeastern parts of the country in winter (where they may fall to -15 °C) and Southeastern parts in summer. Sea coastal areas are milder. Absolute extremes registered so far have been -23 °Ccitation needed in the big mountain of Serra da Estrela and 48 °C in the Alentejo region. There are registered values of 50,5 for Riodades.[9] It is very plausible that these values can be registered on the Guadiana, Douro and Tagus (Tejo) warmest valleys.
Mainland Portugal is split by its main river, the Tagus. The northern landscape is mountainous in the interior areas, with plateaus indented by river valleys. The south, between the Tagus and the Algarve (the Alentejo), features mostly rolling plains and a climate somewhat warmer and drier than in the cooler and rainier north. The Algarve, separated from the Alentejo by mountains, has a climate much like southern coastal Spain.
The islands of the Azores are located in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge whilst the Madeira islands were formed by the activity of an in-plate hotspot, much like the Hawaiian Islands. Some islands have had volcanic activity as recently as 1957. Azores have a subtropical humid climate, as well as Madeira which is warmer and more diversified. In the mountains it is possible to have a mountain temperate climate, on the lowlands subtropical humid climate with the exception of Porto Santo (Warm Inframediterranean climate) and Salvages islands (Ilhas Selvagens) with a desertic climate. Portugal's highest point is Mount Pico on Pico Island in the Azores. This is an ancient volcano measuring 2,350 meters (7,713 ft). Mainland Portugal's highest point is Serra da Estrela, measuring 1993 meters (6,558 ft). Portugal's Exclusive Economic Zone, a seazone 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 in the world.
Conservation areas of Portugal include one national park (Parque Nacional), 12 natural parks (Parque Natural), 9 natural reserves (Reserva Natural), 5 natural monuments (Monumento Natural), and 7 protected landscapes (Paisagem Protegida), ranging from the Parque Nacional da Peneda-Gerês to the Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela to the Paul de Arzila. Climate and geographical diversity shaped the Portuguese Flora.
Due to economic reasons the pine tree (especially the Pinus pinaster and Pinus pinea species), the chestnut tree (Castanea sativa), the cork oak (Quercus suber), the holm oak (Quercus ilex), and the eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) are very widespread.
Mammalian fauna is diverse and includes the fox, badger, Iberian lynx, Iberian Wolf, wild goat (Capra pyrenaica), wild cat (Felis silvestris), hare, weasel, polecat, mongoose, civet, brown bear (spotted near Rio Minho, close to Peneda-Gerês) and many others. Portugal is an important stopover place for migratory birds, like in Saint Vicent Cape or Monchique mountain, where it can be seen thousands of birds that fly from Europe to Africa in the Autumn or on the opposite direction, in the Spring. They congregate here, because Iberian Peninsula is the closest place in Europe to Africa. Portugal has around 600 bird species and almost every year there are new records. The islands have some species of American, European, and African origin, while the mainland shares European and African bird species. Portugal has over 100 freshwater fish species and vary from the giant European catfish (Tejo International Natural Park) to some small and endemic species that live only in small and located lakes (West Zone, for example). Some of these rare and specific species are highly endangered due to habitat loss, pollution and drought. Marine fish species number are on the thousands mark and include the sardine (Sardina pilchardus), tuna and Atlantic mackerel. The marine bioluminescence is very well-represented (in different colors spectra and forms), with interesting phenomena like the glowing plankton, that is possible to observe in some beaches. In Portugal is possible also to observe the upwelling phenomena, specially on the west coast, which turns the sea extremely rich in nutrients and biodiversity. Portuguese marine waters are one of the richest in biodiversity of the world.
Insect fauna has many endemic species, that are only found in some places in Portugal, others are more widespread like the stag beetle (Lucanus cervus) and the cicada. Macaronesian islands (Azores and Madeira) have many endemic species (like birds, reptiles, bats, insects, snails and slugs) that developed differently from any place in the world due to its isolated location and so evolved very unique species. Only in Madeira is possible to observe 200 species of land gastropods. Laurissilva is a unique type of subtropical rainforest in Europe and in the world. It is found in Madeira and Azores, Portugal, and also on the Canary islands, Spain.
Government and politics
Portugal is a democratic republic ruled by the constitution of 1976 with Lisbon, the nation's largest city, as its capital. The four main governing components are the president of the republic, the assembly of the republic, the government, and the courts. The constitution grants the division or separation of powers among legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Portugal like most European countries has no state religion, making it a secular state.
The president, who is elected to a five-year term, has a supervising, non-executive role. The current President is Aníbal Cavaco Silva. The Assembly of the Republic is a unicameral parliament composed of 230 deputies elected for four-year terms. The government is headed by the prime minister (currently José Sócrates), who chooses the Council of Ministers, comprising all the ministers and the respective state secretaries.
The national and regional governments (those of Azores and Madeira autonomous regions), and the Portuguese parliament, are dominated by two political parties, the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party. Minority parties Unitarian Democratic Coalition (Portuguese Communist Party plus Ecologist Party "The Greens"), Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) and CDS-PP (People's Party) are also represented in the parliament and local governments.
The courts are organized into categories, including judicial, administrative, and fiscal. The supreme courts are the courts of last appeal. A thirteen-member constitutional court oversees the constitutionality of legislation.
Foreign relations
Portugal is a founding member of NATO (1949), OECD (1961) and EFTA (1960); it left the latter in 1986 to join the European Economic Community, that would become the European Union in 1993. In 1996 it co-founded the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP). The country is a member state of the United Nations since 1955.
It has a friendship alliance and dual citizenship treaty with Brazil. Portugal is part of the world's oldest active alliance through its treaty with the United Kingdom.
The only international dispute concerns the municipality of Olivença. Under Portuguese sovereignty since 1297, the municipality of Olivença was ceded to Spain under the Treaty of Badajoz in 1801, after the War of the Oranges. Portugal claimed it back in 1815 under the Treaty of Vienna. Nevertheless, bilateral diplomatic relations between the two neighbouring countries are cordial, as well as within the European Union.
Military
The armed forces have three branches: Army, Navy, and Air Force. The military of Portugal serves primarily as a self-defense force whose mission is to protect the territorial integrity of the country and providing humanitarian assistance and security at home and abroad. As of 2002, the total armed forces of Portugal numbered 43,600 active personnel including 2,875 women. Reservists numbered 210,930 for all services. The army had 25,400 personnel with equipment including 187 main battle tanks. The navy of 10,800, including 1,580 marines, had two submarines, six frigates, and 28 patrol and coastal combatants. The air force of 7,400 was equipped with 50 combat aircraft. Paramilitary police and republican guards, the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), number 40,900. GNR is a police force under the authority of the military, its soldiers are subject to military law and organization. It has provided detachments for participation in international operations in Iraq and East Timor. The United States maintains a military presence with 770 troops. Portugal participates in peacekeeping operations in several regions. Defense spending in 1999–00 was $1.3 billion, representing 2.2% of GDP.
Since the early 2000s, compulsory military service is no longer practiced. The changes also turned the forces' focus towards professional military engagements. The age for voluntary recruitment is set at 18. In the 20th century, Portugal engaged in two major military interventions: the First Great War and the Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974). Portugal has participated in peacekeeping missions in East Timor, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (Nasiriyah), and Lebanon. The Portuguese Military's Rapid Reaction Brigade, a combined force of the nation's elite Paratroopers, Special Operations Troops Centre, and Commandos, is a special elite fighting force.
Economy
Portugal's economy is based on services and industry such as software and automotive. Business services have overtaken more traditional industries[1] such as textiles, clothing, footwear, cork and wood products and beverages (wine, beer, juice, soft drinks). The country has increased its role in the automotive, mold-making and software sectors. Services, particularly tourism, are playing an increasingly important role. Portugal's European Union (EU) funding will be cut by 10%, to 22.5 billion euros, during the 2007–2013 period. EU expansion into eastern Europe has erased Portugal's past competitive advantage and relative low labor costs. Portugal's economic development model has been changing from one based on public consumption and public investment to one focused on exports, private investment, and development of the high-tech sector. At present, Portugal is exporting more technology than it imports.[1]
Portugal joined the European Union in 1986 and started a process of modernization within the framework of a stable environment. It has achieved a healthy level of growth. Successive governments have implemented reforms and privatized many state-controlled firms and liberalized key areas of the economy. Portugal was one of the founding countries of the euro in 1999, and therefore is integrated into the Eurozone. Major industries include oil refineries, automotive, cement production, pulp and paper industry, textile, footwear, furniture, and cork (of which Portugal is the world's leading producer).[10] Manufacturing accounts for 33% of exports. Portugal is the world's fifth-largest producer of tungsten, and the world's eleventh-largest producer of wine. Agriculture and fishing no longer represents the bulk of the economy. However, Portugal has a strong tradition in the fisheries sector and is one of the countries with the highest fish consumption per capita.[11] Portuguese wines, namely Port Wine (named after the country's second largest city, Porto) and Madeira Wine (named after Madeira Island), are exported worldwide. Tourism is also important, especially in mainland Portugal's southernmost region of the Algarve and in the Atlantic Madeira archipelago.
The Global Competitiveness Report for 2005, published by the World Economic Forum, placed Portugal's competitiveness on the 22nd position, ahead of countries and territories such as Spain, Ireland, France, Belgium and Hong Kong . This represented an increase of two places from the 2004 ranking. Portugal was ranked 20th on the Technology index and 15th on the Public Institutions index.[12] However, the Global Competitiveness Index 2007-2008 placed Portugal on the 40th position out of 131 countries and territories.[13]
Research about standard of living by the Economist Intelligence Unit's quality of life survey[14] placed Portugal as the country with the 19th-best quality of life in the world for the year 2005, ahead of other economically and technologically advanced countries like France, Germany, the United Kingdom and South Korea. This is despite the fact that Portugal has the lowest per capita GDP in Western Europe and among the lowest in the European Union.
Major State-owned companies include Águas de Portugal (water), Caixa Geral de Depósitos (banking), Comboios de Portugal (railways) and CTT (postal services). Publicly-owned companies like EDP, Galp, Jerónimo Martins, Millennium bcp, Portugal Telecom and Sonae are among the largest corporations of Portugal by both number of employees and net income.
The major stock exchange is the Euronext Lisbon which is part of the NYSE Euronext, the first global stock exchange. The PSI-20 is Portugal's most selective and widely known stock index.
Energy, transportation, communications, water supply and sanitation
In 2006 the world's largest solar power plant began operating in the nation's sunny south while the world's first commercial wave power farm opened in October 2006 in the Norte region. As of 2006, 55% of electricity production was from coal and fuel power plants. The other 40% was produced by hydroelectrics and 5% by wind energy. The government is channeling $38,000,000,000 into developing renewable energy sources over the next five years.
Portugal wants renewable energy sources like solar, wind and wave power to account for nearly half of the electricity consumed in the country by 2010. "This new goal will place Portugal in the frontline of renewable energy and make it, along with Austria and Sweden, one of the three nations that most invest in this sector", Prime Minister José Sócrates said.
Transportation was seen as a priority in the 1990s, pushed by the growing use of automobiles and industrialization. The country has a 68,732 km (42,708 mi) network of roads, of which almost 3,000 km (1,864 mi) are part of a 44 motorways system.
The two principal metropolitan areas have subway systems: Lisbon Metro and Metro Sul do Tejo in Lisbon Metropolitan Area and Porto Metro in Porto, each with more than 35 km (22 mi) of lines. Construction of a high-speed TGV line connecting Porto with Lisbon, Lisbon with Madrid and Porto with Vigo will begin in 2008.
Lisbon's geographical position makes it a stopover point for many foreign airlines at airports all over the country. The government decided to build a new airport outside Lisbon, in Alcochete, to replace Lisbon's Portela airport. Currently, the most important airports are in Lisbon, Faro, Porto, Funchal (Madeira), and Ponta Delgada (Azores). Portugal has one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates in the world (the number of operative mobile phones already exceeds the population). This network also provides wireless mobile Internet connections as well, and covers the entire territory. As of October 2006, 36.8% of households had high-speed Internet services and 78% of companies had Internet access. Most Portuguese watch television through cable (June 2004: 73.6% of households). Paid Internet connections are available at many cafés, as well as many post offices. One can also surf on the Internet at hotels, conference centres and shopping centres, where special areas are reserved for this purpose. Free internet access is also available to Portuguese residents at "Espaços de Internet" across the country.
Portugal has also modernized its water supply and sanitation system, in particular by increasing the rate of wastewater treated with support from EU subsidies to 80%. The country has also established a modern institutional and legal framework for the water and sanitation sector, including an autonomous regulatory agency, a national asset holding company called Águas de Portugal and a number of multi-municipal utilities. This replaced an institutionally fragemented sector structure, under which the country's 308 municipalities - many of them very small - had exclusive responsibility for water and sanitation.
Demographics
The population of Portugal, the first unified national-state in Western Europe, has been extremely homogeneous for most of its history. A single religion and a single language have contributed to this ethnic and national unity. The great majority of Portuguese are Roman Catholic, though a large percentage consider themselves non-practising, especially in urban lands. Portugal was one of the last western European nations to give up its colonies and overseas territories, turning over the administration of Macau to China in 1999. Its colonial history has been fundamental to national identity, as has its geographic position at the margin of Europe looking out to the Atlantic. The country is fairly homogeneous linguistically and religiously. Native Portuguese are ethnically a combination of Celts, Lusitanians, Phoenicians, Romans, Germanic (Visigoths, Suebi, Buri), Alans, Jews and Moors (mostly Berbers and Arabs).
In the 2001 census, the population was 10,355,824 of which 52% was female, 48% was male. By 2007, Portugal had 10,617,575 inhabitants of whom about 332,137 were legal immigrants.[17] Portugal, long a country of emigration, has now become a country of net immigration,[18] and not just from the last Indian (Portuguese until 1961), African (Portuguese until 1975), and Far East Asian (Portuguese until 1999) overseas territories. Since the 1990s, along with a boom in construction, several new waves of Ukrainian, Brazilian, people from the former Portuguese colonies in Africa and other Africans have settled in the country. Those communities currently make up the largest groups of immigrants in Portugal. Romanians, Moldovans and Chinese also have chosen Portugal as destination. A number of EU citizens from the United Kingdom, Spain and other EU member states, also have chosen Portugal as destination, with the British community being mostly composed of retired pensioners and the Spaniards composed of professionals (medical doctors, business managers, businesspersons, nurses, etc.).[19] Portugal's gypsy population, estimated at about 40,000,[20] offers another element of ethnic diversity. Most gypsies live apart, and primarily in the south. They can often be found at rural markets selling clothing and handicrafts. Portugal also has small Protestant, Muslim and Jewish communities, largely composed of foreigners.
The most populous cities are Lisbon, Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia, Amadora, Braga, Almada, Coimbra, Funchal and Setúbal. There are seven Greater Metropolitan Areas (GAMs): Algarve, Aveiro, Coimbra, Lisbon, Minho, Porto and Viseu.
| Rank | City name | Population | Metropolitan area | Subregion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lisbon | 564,657 | Greater Metropolitan Area of Lisbon | Grande Lisboa |
| 2 | Porto | 263,131 | Greater Metropolitan Area of Porto | Grande Porto |
| 3 | Vila Nova de Gaia |