Visit Central Portugal

In Portugal villages,
towns and cities are
divided into 3 main
categories. As a rough
guide :

Cidade
A city with roughly
10,000 plus inhabitants.

Vila
A town with up to roughly
10,000 inhabitants.

Aldeia
A village with a few to a
couple of hundred
inhabitants.

During the 15th and 16th Centuries, Portugal acquired a vast colonial empire in India, the Far East, Brazil and Africa, which brought great wealth and world status to the country.

Throughout the 17th Century, the increasing Dutch, English and French expansion into the spice and slave trades, undermined Portugal's monopoly, thus weakening her empire.

At home, Portugal was further weakened by:

> An earthquake and tsunami in 1755, which virtually destroyed the capital city of Lisbon and claimed between 60,000 to 100,000 lives.
>The Napoleonic Wars of 1803-1805.
>The loss of its largest Colony, Brazil, in 1822.

In 1910, a revolution deposed the Monarchy, the Royal Household of Braganza, and Portugal was declared a Republic.

A military coup in 1926 installed a right-wing military government. The finances of the country were taken over by an Economics Professor from the University of Coimbra,
António de Oliveira Salazar, who In 1932 was elected Prime Minister with absolute power.

In 1974 the "Carnation Revolution" deposed Salazar's ruling regime and the new Democratic Government granted independence to its remaining overseas Colonies.

Many Portuguese returned from these Colonies, generating an economic recovery.
In 1986 Portugal entered the European Economic Community (now the EU) and in 1999 adopted the Euro as its official currency.

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