40 Interesting Facts About Portugal, All Fact-Checked

Portugal is the westernmost country in mainland Europe, it has held roughly the same borders since 1297, and about 10.3 million people live in it. Those three facts survive checking. A surprising number of the ones you will meet on other lists do not, so every fact below is traced to a census, a national statistics body, a Guinness record or the institution that owns the thing being described, and the ones that failed the check are named at the end.

Portugal packs an unusual amount into a country the size of Indiana: two Atlantic archipelagos, the oldest bookshop still trading anywhere in the world, the biggest surfable wave ever measured, and half the planet’s cork. If you are reading this before a trip, our Portugal travel guide covers where to go with the same facts attached.

Facts about Portugal’s land and people

Portugal’s land and people are defined by an Atlantic edge and a small, slowly changing population. The 7 facts below cover the geography and the demographics.

1. Portugal is the westernmost country in mainland Europe. Cabo da Roca, on the coast west of Sintra, is the westernmost point of the European mainland, and there is a marker on the cliff saying so.
2. The 2021 census counted 10,343,066 residents. Statistics Portugal has recorded growth since, driven by immigration rather than births, so any figure you see under 10 million is out of date.
3. Portugal is not only the mainland. Two Atlantic archipelagos are autonomous regions of the country: the Azores, nine volcanic islands roughly 1,400 km (869.9 miles) west of Lisbon, and Madeira, about 900 km (559.2 miles) southwest of it.
4. 80.2% of the population identified as Catholic at the 2021 census. The share with no religion reached 14.1%, more than double the 6.8% recorded in 2011.
5. Portugal and Porto take their name from the same place. Portus Cale was the Roman-era settlement at the mouth of the Douro, and the county named after it became the kingdom. Porto did not name the country; they share an ancestor.
6. Mirandese is Portugal’s second official language. It has been co-official since 1999 and is spoken in parts of Miranda do Douro, Vimioso and Mogadouro in the northeast, by a few thousand people.
7. Portuguese women outlive Portuguese men by close to six years. The gap has narrowed over the past two decades and is still among the wider ones in western Europe.

Facts about Portuguese history

Portuguese history is longer at the front end and later at the back end than most lists suggest, because the country’s founding and its borders are two different dates. The 9 facts below run in chronological order.

8. Afonso Henriques declared himself king in 1139. Castile recognised him in the Treaty of Zamora in 1143 and the papacy followed in 1179, which is the sequence behind the claim that Portugal is Europe’s oldest nation state.
9. The borders were fixed in 1297, not 1139. The Treaty of Alcañices settled the frontier with Castile, and apart from the disputed village of Olivença it has barely moved in more than 700 years. That treaty, not the 1139 declaration, is what makes Portugal’s borders the oldest stable ones in Europe.
10. The Portuguese Empire ran for almost six centuries. It opened with the capture of Ceuta in 1415 and closed with the handover of Macau to China on 20 December 1999, which makes it the longest-lived of the European colonial empires.
11. Vasco da Gama was the first European to reach India by sea. He landed near Calicut in May 1498 after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and the Vasco da Gama Bridge in Lisbon is named after him.
12. The Anglo-Portuguese alliance is the oldest active alliance in the world. It rests on the Treaty of Tagilde in 1372, the Treaty of London in 1373 and the Treaty of Windsor in 1386, and it has never been formally broken.
13. Portugal abolished slavery in stages, ending in 1869. The Marquis of Pombal banned the import of enslaved people into mainland Portugal in 1761 and introduced a free-womb law in 1773, and slavery was abolished throughout the Portuguese empire by decree in 1869. The commonly repeated date of 1819 does not match either step.
14. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake struck on All Saints’ Day. The quake on 1 November 1755 is estimated at magnitude 8.5 to 9.0, and the tsunami and fires that followed destroyed most of central Lisbon. The rebuilt Baixa Pombalina used a timber cage called the gaiola pombalina, one of the earliest earthquake-resistant building systems in Europe.
15. Portugal became a republic on 5 October 1910. The monarchy ended with a revolution in Lisbon, and 5 October is still a public holiday.
16. The Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 was almost bloodless. Army officers overthrew the Estado Novo dictatorship, Lisbon crowds put carnations in soldiers’ rifle barrels, and four people died. Portugal’s 25 de Abril Bridge was renamed after that date.

Facts about the Portuguese language

Portuguese is spoken far more widely outside Portugal than inside it, and the 4 facts below explain why.

17. Portuguese is an official language in nine countries. They are Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor and Equatorial Guinea. It is also co-official in the Macau Special Administrative Region of China.
18. Around 260 million people speak Portuguese. Brazil accounts for the large majority of them, which is why Brazilian Portuguese, not European Portuguese, is what most learners hear first.
19. European and Brazilian Portuguese sound very different. European Portuguese swallows unstressed vowels, which is the main reason learners who trained on Brazilian audio struggle in Lisbon. If you want to close that gap before a trip, we have a guide to learning Portuguese in Lisbon.
20. Portugal is a founding member of NATO and of the euro. It signed the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 and was in the first group of countries to adopt the euro in 1999.

Facts about Portuguese food and drink

Portuguese food and drink carry the empire in them, because several of the dishes the country is known for arrived by sea in both directions. The 7 facts below start with the national dish.

21. Salt cod is the national dish, and Portugal catches almost none of it. Bacalhau comes from the North Atlantic, mostly Norwegian and Icelandic waters, and the Portuguese saying is that there is a recipe for every day of the year. Treat the number as a saying rather than a count.
22. The Portuguese gave Japan tempura. Portuguese missionaries and traders in 16th-century Nagasaki brought the technique of frying vegetables in batter, which in Portugal is peixinhos da horta, and the Japanese made it theirs.
23. Piri-piri travelled in a loop. Portuguese traders carried the chilli from the Americas to southeast Africa, where it grew wild and small, and the sauce built around it came back to Portugal from Mozambique and Angola.
24. The Douro is the world’s oldest demarcated and regulated wine region. The Marquis of Pombal set its boundaries in 1756 to protect port wine from adulteration, more than 150 years before the French appellation system.
25. The pastel de nata was invented by monks. The recipe came from the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Belém, and the shop next door has been making it since 1837. Our guide to the pastéis de nata worth queuing for in Lisbon covers the rest of the city.
26. Portugal set the Guinness record for the largest omelette. It was cooked in Ferreira do Zêzere in 2012 by 55 people over six hours, using 145,000 eggs, and it weighed 6,466 kg.
27. People from Porto are called tripeiros, or tripe eaters. The nickname comes from the 1415 expedition to Ceuta, when the city is said to have given its meat to the fleet and kept the offal, and Porto still eats tripas à moda do Porto with pride.

Facts about Portuguese culture and traditions

Portuguese culture keeps its landmarks working rather than preserved, which is why several of the facts below are about places you can still walk into. The 8 facts below cover music, tiles, books and football.

28. Fado has been on UNESCO’s intangible heritage list since 2011. It is urban song built around loss and longing, sung in Lisbon and, in a different university form, in Coimbra. Our guide to Coimbra covers where to hear the second kind.
29. Portugal has 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites. They range from the monastery at Batalha to the historic centre of Porto and the Laurisilva forest of Madeira.
30. Tiles are structural, not decorative. Azulejos cover facades, church interiors and metro stations across the country, and Lisbon’s National Tile Museum traces five centuries of them in a former convent.
31. Portuguese pavement is a craft with a name. Calçada portuguesa is hand-laid limestone and basalt set in patterns, and it is beautiful, slippery in rain and hard on shoes, which is why cobblers do well here.
32. Livraria Bertrand in Lisbon is the oldest bookshop still trading in the world. It opened in 1732, survived the 1755 earthquake in a rebuilt premises on Rua Garrett, and holds the Guinness record.
33. Livraria Lello in Porto charges for entry. The Art Nouveau and neo-Gothic bookshop with the red staircase now sells timed tickets from about €8, and the price comes off a book if you buy one.
34. Benfica holds the Guinness record for the most members of a football club. More than 160,000 paid-up members were counted in 2006, and Portuguese football club membership is a family inheritance more than a subscription.
35. Cristiano Ronaldo was born in Funchal, Madeira, in 1985. Madeira’s airport is named after him and the Museu CR7 in Funchal holds his trophies.

Portugal’s records, industries and oddities

Portugal’s records cluster around water, cork and electricity, and the 6 facts below are the ones worth knowing before you travel.

36. The biggest wave ever surfed was ridden at Nazaré. Sebastian Steudtner rode a 26.21 m (86 ft) wave at Praia do Norte on 29 October 2020, ratified by Guinness after 18 months of measurement. A 28.57 m (93.7 ft) ride at the same beach is awaiting ratification. The Nazaré canyon funnels Atlantic swell into the beach, which is why it happens there and nowhere else in Europe.
37. The Vasco da Gama Bridge is the longest bridge in the European Union. It runs 17.2 km (10.7 miles) across the Tagus including its viaducts and opened in 1998 for Expo 98.
38. Portugal produces about half the world’s cork. It holds 736,000 hectares of cork oak forest, 84% of it in the Alentejo, and takes 62.4% of world cork exports. The trees are protected by law and are stripped by hand roughly every nine years, in a season that runs from May.
39. Portugal generated more renewable electricity than the mainland consumed in March 2018. Hydro, wind and solar output over that month exceeded total mainland consumption, and Portugal is also the largest lithium producer in Europe.
40. The Capela dos Ossos in Évora is lined with the bones of over 5,000 people. Franciscan friars built it in the 16th century when the city’s graveyards ran out of room, and the inscription over the door translates as “we bones that are here await yours”.

Portugal facts that turn out to be false

Six facts about Portugal circulate widely and do not survive a check. They are listed below with what the source actually says.

1. “97% of Portugal is Roman Catholic.” The 2021 census puts it at 80.2%, with 14.1% reporting no religion.
2. “Portugal has had the same borders since 1139.” 1139 is the year Afonso Henriques declared himself king. The border with Castile was settled in 1297 by the Treaty of Alcañices.
3. “J.K. Rowling was inspired by Livraria Lello.” She said publicly in 2020 that she was never inspired by Lello and never went inside. She did live in Porto and teach English there, which is where the story starts.
4. “The biggest wave surfed at Nazaré was 23.77 m.” That was Garrett McNamara’s 2011 record. It has been beaten twice since, and the ratified figure is now 26.21 m.
5. “Portugal was the first colonial power to abolish slavery, in 1819.” Nothing happened in 1819. Pombal banned the import of enslaved people to mainland Portugal in 1761 and abolition across the empire came in 1869.
6. “It is illegal to urinate in the ocean in Portugal.” Lists of odd European laws repeat this constantly and none of them cites a statute. Treat it as folklore until someone produces one.

Portugal facts FAQ

What is Portugal famous for?

Portugal is famous for port wine, pastéis de nata, azulejo tiles, fado, cork, surfing at Nazaré and the age of its maritime exploration. It is also the country with the longest-lasting European colonial empire, running from 1415 to 1999.

Is Portugal the oldest country in Europe?

Portugal has the oldest stable borders in Europe rather than the oldest state. The frontier settled by the Treaty of Alcañices in 1297 is essentially the frontier today, which is a stronger claim than most European countries can make and a different claim from being founded first.

What language do they speak in Portugal?

Portuguese is the official language of Portugal, and Mirandese has been co-official in three northeastern municipalities since 1999. European Portuguese differs enough from Brazilian Portuguese in pronunciation that learners trained on Brazilian audio often struggle in Lisbon.

How big is Portugal?

Mainland Portugal covers 89,102 km² (34,403 sq miles), roughly the size of Indiana or a little larger than Scotland, and the Azores and Madeira add about 3,000 km² (1,158 sq miles) more. You can drive from the northern border to the Algarve in a long day.

What is the best time to visit Portugal?

May, June, September and October give warm weather without August crowds and prices, and the shoulder months are when the Douro and the Alentejo are green rather than scorched. Winter is mild on the coast and genuinely cold inland in the Serra da Estrela, which is the only place in mainland Portugal with a ski resort.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below turn the facts above into things you can actually do, and each one is drawn from the checking done for this page.

1. Book Livraria Lello’s timed ticket before you reach Porto. Entry to the Porto bookshop is ticketed from about €8, the price is redeemable against a book, and the queue on Rua das Carmelitas is for people who did not book. Go for the staircase and the stained glass, not for a Harry Potter connection the author has denied.
2. Go to Nazaré between October and March if you want to see the big waves. The Nazaré canyon only produces them on winter Atlantic swell, so a summer visit to Praia do Norte shows you an ordinary beach. Watch from the Forte de São Miguel Arcanjo headland, which is where every record photograph is taken from.
3. Visit the Capela dos Ossos in Évora rather than the one in Faro. Évora’s is the famous chapel, holding the bones of more than 5,000 people, and the figure of “1,245 monks” that circulates online belongs to no Portuguese bone chapel at all.
4. See the cork oaks in the Alentejo, and go from May onwards. 84% of Portugal’s 736,000 hectares of cork forest are in the Alentejo, harvesting starts in May, and stripped trunks are marked with the year so you can read how long ago each tree was cut.
5. Eat in the Art Deco McDonald’s on Avenida dos Aliados in Porto. It occupies the old Café Imperial, and the stained glass, chandelier and eagle over the door survived the conversion. Our Porto Card guide covers what else on the avenue is worth your time.

For getting between all of this, trains and buses across Portugal run the length of the country from Braga to Faro, and places to stay in Portugal are cheapest booked outside the July and August window.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, who has travelled Portugal from Lisbon and Sintra to Porto, Coimbra and the Douro. The team covers Portugal for independent travellers, including the tours, hotels, trains and restaurants worth booking, and re-checks the figures on this page against the census, Guinness World Records and the institutions concerned when they change.