Friday, April 16, 2004

Portuguese Facts

  • Lonely Planet Portugal Travel Guide

    Planning to visit Portugal?  Get the Lonely Planet Portugal Travel Guide and the Lonely Planet Portuguese Phrase Book.  I have found the Lonely Planet Portugal Travel Guide extremely useful in finding numerous interesting destinations and made very good use of the Lonely Planet Polish Phrase Book on my recent trip to Poland.  The Lonely Planet Phrase Books have intuitive pronunciation keys and are peppered with interesting facts on their respective country.  More importantly, this Phrase Book is concentrated on Continental Portuguese.
    Portugal is a republic in extreme southwest of Europe, on the Iberian Peninsula, and the Atlantic Ocean (the islands of Azores, Madeira and Savage). Portugal claims Olivença, administrated by Spain, as part of its national territory. It shares land borders with Spain in the north and east. A citizen of Portugal is usually identified as Portuguese but also as Luso (or Lusitano, Eng. Lusitanian). wikipedia.org
  • Portugal has 18 Distritos and two autonomous regions (Açores and Madeira), 141 Cidades, 308 Concelhos, 533 Vilas, and 4,257 Freguesias.
  • Portugal entered the EC (now the EU) in 1986.
  • There are over 1 million Portuguese in the US.
  • Portuguese is the 6th most spoken native language.
  • The "Dia de Portugal," which is celebrated on June 10, marks the anniversary of the death of Portugal's national poet, Louis de Camões, who wrote the epic poem of the nation, known as "The Lusiads." Today, Dia de Portugal is a celebration of Portugal's history and culture throughout the Portuguese communities. www.treasury.ri.gov
  • Portugal is the 4th Oldest Country:
CountryYear
San Marino 301
France 486
Denmark 950
Portugal1143
Andorra 1278
Switzerland 1291
worldatlas.com
  • A Portuguesa, the national anthem of Portugal, was written by Henrique Lopes de Mendonça (lyrics) and Alfredo Keil (music) after the nationalist resurgence provoked by the British Ultimatum (for Portuguese troops to get out of the territory between Angola and Mozambique), was adopted as a Republican anthem and, finally, by the new Portuguese Republic in 1910 as National Anthem, replacing O Hino da Carta, the last anthem of the Constitutional Monarchy in Portugal.
  • Portuguese people eat 60% of the world's Bacalhau. Factoring in Portugal's small population, this means that on average, a Portuguese person consumes 640 times more Bacalhau than a non-Portuguese person. Portugal has more than 365 different ways of preparing Bacalhau.
  • Portugal is home to Port Wine.
  • Portugal has the 4th largest wine consumption per capita:
CountryLiters per Capita
Luxembourg 63.3
France 60.1
Italy 58.1
Portugal53.0
Slovenia 52.0
Switzerland 49.4
Croatia 46.8
Argentina 39.4
Spain 36.9
Uruguay 33.6
/ / / / /
Canada 7.39
United States 7.38
wineinstitute.org
  • Famous Portuguese People:
    • Saints:
      • Santo António de Lisboa (or Anthony of Padua)
      • Fatima vidents (1917 Our Lady apparitions in Fátima)
        • Lucia Abobora dos Santos and Francisco and Jacinta Marto
      • Rainha Santa Isabel de Portugal
    • Pope John XXI (13th Century)
    • José Saramago (writer, Literature Nobel Prize 1998)
    • António de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970) (Dictator; Ruled Portugal from 1932 to 1968)
    • Judah Benjamim (Minister of War for General Lee - Civil War)
    • Bernardino Coutinho (Portugal Day Organizer, Newark, NJ)
    • Business:
      • Alain J. P. Belda (Alcoa, CEO & Chairman)
      • Joao Santos (Senior Economist - Federal Reserve)
    • Athletes:
      • Joaquim Agostinho (April 7 1942 - May 10 1984) Cyclist
      • Eusebio da Silva Ferreira (born January 25, 1942) Football Player
      • Carlos Lopes (1947-) Marathon Olympic Champion
      • Rosa Mota (1958-) Marathon Olympic Champion
      • Paulo Futre - Football Player
      • Paulo Sousa - Football Player
      • Manuel Rui Costa - Football Player
      • Vítor Baía - Football Player
      • Luis Filipe Madeira Caiero Figo - Football Player
    • Musicians:
      • Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999) (Queen of Fado)
      • Madredeus (folk group)
      • Dulce Pontes (Fado)
      • Nelly Furtado (Grammy award winner)
      • Steve Perry (Journey)
      • Nuno Bittencourt (Extreme)
      • Cristina Branco (Fado)
      • John Philip Sousa (composed "Stars and Stripes Forever", which is the official march of the United States & invented the sousaphone)
    • TV / Film Industry:
      • Manuel de Oliveira(1908-) (director)
      • Carmen Miranda (February 9, 1909 - August 5, 1955)
      • Beatriz Costa (actress)
      • António Silva (actor)
      • Laura Alves (actress)
      • Joaquim de Almeida (actor)
      • Maria de Medeiros (actress)
      • Meredith Vieira (moderates ABC's talk show "The View")
      • Brooke Burke (Model, Host Wild On)
      • Don Ho (Hawaiian Entertainer)
      • Emeril Legasse (TV Chef)
      • Piper Parabo (Movie Actress, Singer, Coyote Ugly)
      • Joe deRita (Movie Actor, Comedian, Curly of Three Stooges)
    • Explorers:
      • Diogo Cão (15th century explorer of African coast)
      • Bartolomeu Dias (15th century explorer of African coast)
      • Vasco da Gama (discoverer of the Sea Route to India in 1498)
      • Pedro Alvares Cabral (discoverer of Brazil in 1500)
      • Gaspar Corte-Real (16th century explorer of North America)
      • Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan, sea explorer)
      • Afonso de Albuquerque (naval general and vice-king of India)
      • Fernão Pires de Andrade (merchant)
      • Gago Coutinho(1869-1959) & Sacadura Cabral(1881-1924) (were the first to cross South Atlantic Ocean by air in 1922)
    • First Ladies:
      • Dina Matos McGreevey, New Jersey's First Lady
      • Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of US Presidential hopeful, John Kerry
  • Portugal has another officially recognized language, Mirandese, spoken by a few thousand people in Northeast Portugal. This language was recognized by the Portuguese Parliament in 1999. During the Middle Ages, Galician and Portuguese were the same language. Now Galician can be seen as a somewhat Castilianized form of Portuguese.
  • Portuguese Language Territories include:(nationmaster.com)
    • As a national language
      • Portugal
      • Brazil
      • Sao Tome and Principe
    • As an official language
      • Angola (60% of the population)
      • Cape Verde (Portuguese lives exclusively among various Portuguese origin creoules)
      • East Timor (spoken by less than 20% of the population)
      • Guinea-Bissau (Portuguese and its Creoules are spoken by 55% of the population)
      • Macau, People's Republic of China (2% of the Population)
      • Mozambique (40% of the population)
  • "Arigato," the Japanese word for thank you comes from the Portuguese word for thank you "obrigado" (which also means obliged).
  • The population of Portugal is 10,102,022 (July 2003 est.).
  • Portugal has approximately 15 Million Citizens (about one quarter of one percent of the world's population...which makes many of Portugal's contributions that much more impressive).
  • In 1661 King Afonso's sister, Catherine of Braganza, married King Charles II of Britain. After the British captured New Amsterdam (which is now New York) from the Dutch in 1664, Charles named Queens County (which then included what is now Nassau) for his Queen.
  • The custom of drinking tea was introduced to the British court by a Portuguese princess, Catarina de Braganca, who married King Charles II in 1662. She brought in her dowry a chest full of Chinese tea leaves (worth a fortune at that time), as well as the city of Bombay, the starting point of the British settlement in India.
  • Aristides Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, France, helped 30,000 Jews escape Nazi persecution by issuing visas to Portugal, against the orders of his government.
  • Christopher Columbus: 1476 swam ashore in Portugal after a sea battle and became a resident of Lisbon; 1479 married Felipa of Portuguese nobility; 1485 moved to Spain after King John II (Portugal) rejected his plan to sail west to China.
  • Elevation extremes: lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m. highest point: Ponta do Pico on Ilha do Pico in the Azores 2,351 m.
  • Area: total: 92,391 sq km. land: 91,951 sq km (includes Azores and Madeira Islands) water: 440 sq km. Portugal is slightly smaller than the state of Indiana
  • Land boundaries: a 1,214 km border with Spain and a 1,793 km coastline.
  • Portugal has the oldest borders in the world, established in 1249.
  • The 16th century poet Louis de Camões lived from 1524?- 1580 and is recognized as Portugal's greatest writer. His epic poem, "The Lusiads" focuses on Portuguese history with an emphasis on the voyage of Vasco da Gama. Gama, the renowned Portuguese explorer, was the first European to journey by sea to India in the 15th century, which was the catalyst for the development of the Portuguese Empire.(www.treasury.ri.gov)
  • Roman Portugal was called Luisitania. Cunard named one of two ships built at the beginning of the twentieth century, Luisitania: her sister ship was the Mauretania.
  • Portugal was founded by Alfonso Henriques.
  • In 2000, Luis Figo was voted best soccer player in the world by FIFA, 35 years after Eusebio received the same distinction.
  • A University was established in 1290 in Lisbon.
  • Portugal has a long association with Britain: in 1308 they signed the Treaty of Friendship; 1386 saw another Alliance and the 1654 Treaty of commercial cooperation was accompanied by British aid for independence from Spain. The oldest formal alliance between two countries is the Treaty of Windsor signed by Portugal and England in 1386.
  • In 1357 a dead woman was crowned Queen of Portugal. King Alfonso had ordered the death of Ines de Castro with whom his son, Pedro, was in love. When Pedro became King he ordered that Ines be exhumed and crowned. He also executed those who had killed her, earning the name Pedro the Cruel.
  • The Portuguese caravel, whose design enabled it to carry cargo and sail close to the wind made the great voyages of exploration possible.
  • Prince Henry the Navigator set up a school at Sagres, where he gathered the finest map-makers, astronomers and navigators of the age. Magellan and Vasco da Gama were among the great explorers who studied there.
  • The island of Madeira was claimed for Portugal in 1419. Its name comes from the Portuguese word for wood because it is heavily forested.
  • At the end of the 1490s Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India.
  • Bartholomew Diaz, the Portuguese explorer, was the first to sail round the southern tip of Africa which he named the Cape of Good Hope.
  • Pedro Alvarez Cabral was the discoverer of Brazil.
  • The Portuguese established a trading post in Goa, India, in 1510.
  • In 1522 Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer, financed by Spain, became the first to complete a circumnavigation of the world.
  • Both Columbus (from Genoa) - the European discoverer of America and Magellan asked the Portuguese to finance their voyages. When they were refused, they went to Spain, where they received the support they needed.
  • Between 1580 and 1640 Spain and Portugal became united adding the Portuguese Empire (including Brazil) to that of the Spanish.
  • Funchal, the main town of Madeira, is named after the herb, fennel (funchal), which grew wild on the island.
  • Since the eighteenth century it has been illegal for the bull to be killed in Portuguese bullfighting.
  • The 1755 earthquake in Lisbon destroyed much of the city: thirty thousand people were killed.
  • King Manuel II, Portugal's last king, was deposed in 1910 and lived in exile in Twickenham, just outside London.
  • In 1917 the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to children in Fatima. The town is now a major centre of pilgrimage.
  • Portugal was an ally of Britain in the First Word War and during the Second World War the Azores were used by the British as a military base.
  • Olivença wikipedia.org
    • Olivença (Portuguese) or Olivenza (Spanish), population 8,274, is a town (and territory) on the Portuguese-Spanish border.
    • Olivença is situated on the left bank of the River Guadiana , near the city of Elvas, about 24 km south of Badajoz. The territory is triangular, with two of its vertices lying in the river Guadiana and the third one going south-east into Spain. Besides the town, the territory of Olivença includes seven villages: S. Francisco, S. Rafael, Vila Real, S. Domingos de Gusmão, S. Bento da Contenda, S. Jorge de Alor and Táliga. The total area is 750 sqkm. Portuguese culture is maintained in the surrounding countryside.
    • Olivença is currently part of the Spanish province of Badajoz in Extremadura. However, the Portuguese government considers it as part of the Portuguese district of Évora.
    • Claim of Sovereignty
      • Portugal does not recognize Spain's de facto sovereignty over the territory. Therefore, the border between these two countries in the Olivença region has never been legally defined. Portugal's formal claim to the region rests on decisions made at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
      • Spanish public opinion is not generally aware of the claim, in comparison to the Spanish claim on Gibraltar and the Moroccan claims on Ceuta, Melilla, the Plazas de soberanía, and the Western Sahara.
      • A leader of the Group of Friends of Olivença says that, as Spain requests the United Kingdom to return Gibraltar, though this is not what its inhabitants want, Portugal is requesting that Spain return Olivença, despite the wishes of its inhabitants. The situations are not entirely parallel, however, as the Portuguese government is not actively pressing its claim to Olivença.
      • Some monuments include Santa Maria do Castelo Church, Espírito Santo Chapel, Santa Maria Madalena Church, São João de Deus Monastery, Menagem Tower, and Nossa Senhora da Ajuda bridge (Portuguese national heritage). Olivença contains the only samples of the Portuguese Manuelino architectural style in Spanish territory.
  • Before the creation of the Portuguese state, the land of Portugal was ruled by the Phoenicians (since 1104 BC), Carthaginians (since 258 BC), Lusitanians (native insurrection from 194 BC), Romans (since 218 BC), Suevi (since 409), Visigoths (since 416), Arabs (since 711), Asturians and Leonese (since 739). wikipedia.org
  • Portugal's name is due to a settlement in the estuary of Douro River, named Cale. Some believe that the name Cale is from the Greek Kalles (The Greek word for beautiful), because of the beautiful scenario of the Douro River where some ancient Greek had settled, while others refer that the name has a Phoenician origin, a people that settled in the Portuguese coast. Nevertheless during the Roman dominion on all the territory, the settlement grew and became a Roman port, so it became known as Portus Cale (Port of Cale). During the Middle ages, the king Luivegildus of the Visigoths and its successors coined currencies with the legend Portucale, which turned to Portugale in the 7th and 8th centuries. In the 9th century the name was extensively used by the all region between the Douro and Minho rivers. In the 11th century, the province gained importance in Galicia, and it became a county of the Kingdom of Leon, like Galicia.
  • Unlike most European nations, Portugal is the same nation that became independent in the 12th century. Sometimes, Portugal changed the official name, but it was always known as Portugal.
    • Kingdom of Portugal (Reino de Portugal)
    • Kingdom of Portugal and Algarve(s) (Reino de Portugal e Algarve(s))
    • United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarves (Reino Unido de Portugal, Brasil e Algarves)
    • Today: Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa). wikipedia.org
  • Affirmation of Portugal
    • In the end of the 11th century, a knight from Burgundy whose name was Henry became count of Portugal. And with him, started the wish for independence of Portugal and he declared it when a civil war was going on between Leon and Castile.
    • Portugal traces its national origin to the Battle of São Mamede in 24th June 1128, when the first Portuguese King, Afonso I, son of Henry of Burgundy, proclaimed himself as Prince of Portugal and in 1139 as King of Portugal, outthrowning his mother, Teresa, Countess of Galicia and former Countess of Portugal. By the conference of Zamora in 1143, with the assistance of a representant of the Holy See, Portugal was recognized as independent and the prince as Dux Portucalensis. In 1179, Afonso I was declared, by the pope, as King. After the Battle, The first Capital of Portugal was Guimarães was from the first King ruled, later when Portugal was already officially independent he ruled from Coimbra. In 1249 - 1250, the Algarve is finally reconquest by Portugal to the Moors, and in 1255, the capital is shifted to Lisbon. Rio de Janeiro (Today a city of Brazil), also became the Portuguese capital between 1808 and 1821, with the loss of it's power, Brazil declares independence and Lisbon regained it's statute.
    • The border with Spain has remained almost unchanged since the 13th century. Portugal has always turned towards the sea. Since early times fishing and overseas commerce have been the main economic activities. Henry the Navigator's interest in exploration together with some technological developments in navigation made Portugal's expansion possible and led to great advances in geographic knowledge. wikipedia.org
  • The Portuguese Royal family was made up of 4 Dynasties: wikipedia.org
    1.
    2.
    3.
    4.
    		Burgundians
    Aviz
    Habsburg
    Bragança
  • In 1986 Mario Soares became the first civilian President of Portugal.
  • A 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy; for most of the next six decades, repressive governments ran the country. In 1974, a left-wing military coup installed broad democratic reforms.
  • In 1975, Portugal granted independence to all of its African colonies.
  • Brazil became independent in 1822.
  • Portugal's Cabo da Roca is the westernmost point on the continent of Europe.
  • Portugal's Capital and largest city is Lisbon.
  • The Ponte de Vasco da Gama (Vasco da Gama Bridge), named after the famous 15th-century Portuguese explorer, is an immense, eleven mile long, cable-stayed bridge across the Tagus River near Lisbon. The actual construction time of this structure represented a world record for a bridge of this scale. The center span is cable-stayed, while the approach spans are concrete, box girder spans, which were constructed using the balance cantilever method. On March 31, 1998 the Vasco da Gama Bridge was officially open. luis.alves@shutterbased.com
      
    Vasco da Gama Bridge
      
  • Currency: Euro EUR (previously it was the Portuguese Escudo).
  • Portuguese drive on the right.
  • Portugal's Electricity is 220 AC, 50 cycles.
  • Weights & measures: Metric.
  • Ethnic groups: 97.9% Portuguese
  • Football Association: FPF, Federação Portuguesa de Futebol
  • International access dialing code: +351
  • Internet country code: .pt
  • Internet users: 4.4 million
  • Main export partners: EU 74% (Spain 25%, Germany 14%, France 11%)
  • Main import partners: EU 79% (Spain 19%), Germany 18%, France 13%, UK 11%)
  • Mobile phones: 3,074,194 (as of 1999).
  • Population density: 109.1 per km2
  • Principal cities & populations: Lisbon 559,400; Porto 264,200; Amadora 175,600; Braga 114,500; Setubal 114,000; Coimbra 103,200; Funchal 103,000.
  • Pro soccer teams: 36 in 2 divisions
  • Time: GMT
  • Tourism: (visitors 2002): 27.1 million
  • Urban population: 38% (2000 estimate)
  • Video system: PAL
  • Wettest month (in Lisbon): January
  • Visas: None required for EU nationals. Nationals of Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the USA can stay for 90 days visa-free. Everyone else needs a visa.
  • Health risks with travel to Portugal: Sunburn.
  • Portuguese Dog Breeds:
    • Cão de Castro Laboreiro
    • Cão de Fila de São Miguel
    • Cão da Serra de Aires
    • Cão da Serra da Estrela
    • Portuguese Pointer
    • Portuguese Podengo Pequeno
    • Portuguese Rabbit Dog
    • Portuguese Water Dog
  • Public Holidays
    • New Years Day - 1st January
    • Carnaval Tuesday - February/March - day before Ash Wednesday
    • Good Friday - March/April
    • Liberty Day - 25 April - celebrating 1974 revolution
    • Labor Day - 1 May
    • Corpus Christi May/June - ninth Thursday after Easter
    • Portugal Day 10 June - also known as Camões & the Communities Day
    • Feast of the Assumption - 15 August
    • Republic Day - 5 October - commemorating 1910 declaration of Portuguese Republic
    • All Saints' Day - 1 November
    • Independence Day - 1 December - commemorating 1640 restoration of independence from Spain
    • Feast of the Immaculate Conception - 8 December
    • Christmas Day 25 December
  • Illicit drugs: gateway country for Latin American cocaine and Southwest Asian heroin entering the European market; transshipment point for hashish from North Africa to Europe; consumer of Southwest Asian heroin. (CIA World Factbook)
  • Flag description: two vertical bands of green (hoist side, two-fifths) and red (three-fifths) with the Portuguese coat of arms centered on the dividing line. (CIA World Factbook)
  • Economy - overview: Portugal has become a diversified and increasingly service-based economy since joining the European Community in 1986. Over the past decade, successive governments have privatized many state-controlled firms and liberalized key areas of the economy, including the financial and telecommunications sectors. The country qualified for the European Monetary Union (EMU) in 1998 and began circulating the euro on 1 January 2002 along with 11 other EU member economies. Economic growth has been above the EU average for much of the past decade, but fell back in 2001-03. GDP per capita stands at 70% of that of the leading EU economies. A poor educational system, in particular, has been an obstacle to greater productivity and growth. Portugal has been increasingly overshadowed by lower-cost producers in Central Europe and Asia as a target for foreign direct investment. The coalition government faces tough choices in its attempts to boost Portugal's economic competitiveness and to keep the budget deficit within the 3% EU ceiling. (CIA World Factbook)
  • International organization participation: AfDB, AsDB, Australia Group, BIS, CE, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, ECE, ECLAC, EIB, EMU, ESA, EU, FAO, IADB, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICCt, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IEA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, LAIA (observer), MINURSO, MONUC, NAM (guest), NATO, NEA, NSG, OAS (observer), OECD, OPCW, OSCE, PCA, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNMIBH, UNMIK, UNMISET, UPU, WCL, WCO, WEU, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO, ZC.
  • Religions: Roman Catholic 94%, Protestant. (CIA World Factbook)
  • Ethnic groups: homogeneous Mediterranean stock; citizens of black African descent who immigrated to mainland during decolonization number less than 100,000; since 1990 East Europeans have entered Portugal. (CIA World Factbook)

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