Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Portugal Almanac
Official Name:
It's República Portuguesa, but locals just say “Portugal.”
Population:
11 million people. Most Portuguese are Roman Catholic (85 percent),
with indigenous Mediterranean roots; there are a few black Africans from former
colonies and some Eastern Europeans.
LatitudeandLongitude:
39˚N and 8˚W (similar latitude to Washington, D.C. or San
Francisco).
Area:
35,000 square miles, which includes the Azores and Madeira, two island groups
in the Atlantic.
Geography:
Portugal is rectangular, 325 miles long and 125 miles wide. (It's roughly
the size and shape of Indiana.) The half of the country north of Lisbon is more
mountainous, cool, and rainy. The south consists of rolling plains, where it's hot
and dry. Portugal has 350 miles of coastline.
Rivers:
The major rivers, most notably the Tejo (or Tagus) River (600 miles long,
spilling into the Atlantic at Lisbon) and the Douro (100 miles, flowing through
wine country, ending at Porto), run east-west from Spain.
Mountains:
Serra da Estrela, at 6,500 feet, is the highest point on the mainland, but
Portugal's highest peak is Mt. Pico (7,713 feet) in the Azores.
Biggest Cities:
Lisbon (the capital, 564,000 in the core, with more than 3 million in
greater Lisbon), Porto (238,000 in the core, with 1.7 million total), and Coimbra
(168,000 in the core and 435,000 in the greater metropolitan area).
Economy:
The Gross Domestic Product is $230 billion (slightly more than Louisi-
ana's). The GDP per capita is $22,700 (Louisiana's is $23,100). Some major
money-makers for Portugal are fish (canned sardines), cork, budget clothes and
shoes, port wine, and tourism. A quarter of Portugal's foreign trade is with Spain.
Portugal's outlook has improved considerably since joining the European Union
in 1986 (then called the European Community), thanks to EU subsidies, but it's
still struggling, with unemployment in 2011 hovering around 15 percent. One in
10 Portuguese works in agriculture, 60 percent work in service jobs, and 30 per-
cent in industry.
Government:
The prime minister—currently the center-right Social Democrat Pedro
Passos Coelho—is the chief executive, having assumed power as the head of the
leading vote-getting party in legislative elections. President Aníbal Cavaco Silva,
re-elected in 2011 to a second five-year term, commands the military and can
