Portugal
From Genealogy
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| Motto: {{{national_motto}}} | |||||
Anthem: "A Portuguesa "
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| Capital | Lisbon5 | ||||
| Largest city | capital | ||||
| Official languages | Portuguese1 | ||||
| Government {{{leader_titles}}} | Parliamentary republic {{{leader_names}}} | ||||
| Formation {{{established_events}}} | {{{established_dates}}} | ||||
| Area • Total • Water (%) | {{{area}}} km² (110th) {{{percent_water}}} | ||||
| Population • [[As of {{{population_estimate_year}}}|{{{population_estimate_year}}}]] est. • [[As of {{{population_census_year}}}|{{{population_census_year}}}]] census • Density | {{{population_estimate}}} ({{{population_estimate_rank}}}) {{{population_census}}} {{{population_density}}}/km² ({{{population_density_rank}}}) | ||||
| GDP (PPP) • Total • Per capita | [[As of {{{GDP_PPP_year}}}|{{{GDP_PPP_year}}}]] estimate {{{GDP_PPP}}} ({{{GDP_PPP_rank}}}) $23,464 (2007) (34th) | ||||
| Currency | Euro (€)² (EUR)
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| Time zone • Summer (DST) | WET³ (UTC) WEST (UTC0)
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| Internet TLD | .pt4
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| Calling code | +351
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Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic[1] (Portuguese: República Portuguesa[2]; IPA: [ʁɛˈpublikɐ puɾtuˈgezɐ]), is a country in southwestern Europe,[3] on the Iberian Peninsula. Being the westernmost country of mainland Europe, Portugal 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 constantly settled since prehistoric times. Some of the earliest civilizations include Celtic societies, followed by incorporation into the Roman Republic dominions in the 2nd century BC, and subsequently into Germanic Kingdoms, such as the Suebi and the Visigoths, from the 5th to the 8th century. The Moors occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula from the early 8th century when they first arrived and conquered the Christian Kingdoms of Germanic background. After the starting of the Reconquista, in the early 1100s Portugal appeared as a kingdom independent of its Christian neighbours, Castile and Leon. In little over a century Portugal had nearly established its modern-day borders by conquering territory from the Muslim Moors.
During the 15th and 16th centuries, with its global empire which included possessions in Africa, Asia and South America, Portugal was one of the world's major economic, political, and cultural powers. In the 19th century, armed conflict with French and Spanish invading forces at mainland, and the loss of its largest territorial possession abroad, Brazil, which declared independence unilaterally, disrupted political stability and potential economic growth. After the Carnation Revolution's coup d'état in 1974, its regimen was deposed in Lisbon and the country lost its last overseas provinces in Africa.
Portugal is a developed country,[4] and although having one of the lowest GDP per capita of Western European countries, it has a high Human Development Index and one of the highest quality of life ratings in the world.[5] It is a member of the European Union (since 1986) and the United Nations (since 1955); as well as a founding member of OECD, NATO, CPLP (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa — Community of Portuguese Language Countries), and the European Union's Eurozone.
[edit] History
The early history of Portugal, whose name probably 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 Lusitanians, visited by Phoenicians and Carthaginians, incorporated in the Roman Republic dominions (as Lusitania in 138 BC), settled again by Suevi, Buri, and Visigoths, and conquered by Moors. 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 into an independent kingdom.
Portugal traces its national origin to June 24 1128 with the Battle of São Mamede. 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 proclaimed himself king of Portugal on July 25, 1139, after the Battle of Ourique and 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.
(1415-1999). Red - true possessions; Pink - explorations, areas of influence and trade and claims of sovereignty; Blue - main sea explorations, routes and areas of influence. The disputed discovery of Australia is not shown.
, a monument to Prince Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese Age of Discovery, LisbonThroughout the 15th century, Portuguese explorers sailed the coast of Africa, establishing trading posts for slaves and gold 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.[6] 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. It may also have been Portuguese sailors that were the first Europeans to discover Australia.[7]
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; in 1640, John IV spearheaded an uprising backed by disgruntled nobles and was proclaimed king. This was the beginning of the House of Braganza, which was to reign until 1910. On 1 November 1755, Lisbon, the largest city and capital of the Portuguese Empire, was strongly shaken by an earthquake which killed between 60,000 and 90,000 people and destroyed eighty-five percent of the city.
By this time, however, the Portuguese empire was already under attack from other countries, specifically Britain and the Netherlands. 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.
(1961-1974)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 the First World War, which led to a military coup d'état in 1926. This in turn led to the establishment of a right-wing dictatorship by 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 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.
Portugal joined the European Union in 1986, and ever since it has engaged in a process of convergence with its EU counterparts.
[edit] 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, nonexecutive 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, and the Portuguese parliament, are dominated by two political parties, the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party. Minority parties CDU (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.
[edit] Foreign relations
Portugal is a founding member of NATO (1949), OECD and EFTA; it left the former in 1986 to join the European Union. In 1996 it co-founded the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. 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 (Olivenza in Spanish). 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.
[edit] Military of Portugal
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. Since the early 2000s, compulsory military service is no longer practised. 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 Colonial War (1961-1974). Portugal has participated in peacekeeping missions in East Timor, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (Nasiriyah), and Lebanon.
[edit] 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).
[edit] Geography and climate
The climate can be classified as Oceanic in the north and Mediterranean in the south. 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. The Madeira and Azores Atlantic archipelagos have a narrower temperature range. Generally, spring and summer are sunny, whereas autumn and winter are rainy and windy.
Extreme temperatures occur in Northeastern parts of the country in winter (where they may fall to -15 °C) and Southeastern parts in summer (where they can soar up to 45 °C). Sea coastal areas are milder, temperatures varying between -2 °C in the coldest winter mornings and 37 °C in the hottest summer afternoons. Absolute extremes registered so far have been -23 °C in Serra da Estrela and 48 °C in the Alentejo region.
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, enjoys a Mediterranean climate much like southern Spain. Snow falls occasionally (on some cold winter days) in the northern interior of the country, from October to May. However, it is a very rare event in the south. The coast registers snow usually once in five or six years.
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