Portugal. Information.

Portugal (Republica Portuguesa), the Portuguese Republic  - state in southwestern  Europe .

Area       - 92,391 sq. km.
Population - 10,566,212  .
�apital    - Lisbon.

On north and east Portugal bordering with  Spain.

In the early first millennium BC, several waves of Celts invaded Portugal from Central Europe and intermarried with 
local peoples, the Iberians, forming the Celt-Iberians. In 238 BC, the Carthaginians occupied the Iberian coasts. 
In 219 BC, the first Roman troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula, driving the Carthaginians out in the Punic Wars. 
 
In the 5th century, Germanic barbarian tribes, most notably the Suevi and the Visigoths, invaded the Iberian peninsula, set 
up kingdoms, and became assimilated.

An Islamic invasion took place in 711. Many of the ousted nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands. 
From there they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors.

While a dependency of the Kingdom of Leon, Portugal occasionally gained de facto independence during weak Leonese reigns, 
but it lost its autonomy in 1071 due to one of these attempts, ending the rule of the counts of the House of Vimara Peres.

Portugal traces its emergence as a nation to 24 June 1128, with the Battle of Sao Mamede by Afonso I. 
On 5 October 1143 Portugal was formally recognized. Afonso, aided by the Templar Knights, continued to conquer southern 
lands from the Moors. In 1250 the Portuguese Reconquista ended when it reached the southern coast of Algarve.

In the following decades, Portugal created the conditions that would make it the pioneer in the exploration of the world, 
since most of the nobles had supported the King of Spain and with the victory of John I, the nobles either fled or were 
executed. Hence the Portuguese middle class who had supported and helped the victorious King suddenly rose up in the social 
ranks of Portugal, creating a new dynamic generation which allowed the discoveries to proceed. On 25 July 1415, the 
Portuguese Empire began when a Portuguese fleet, with King John I and his sons Duarte, Pedro, Henry the Navigator, and 
Afonso, along with the Portuguese supreme constable Nuno Alvares Pereira departed to besiege and conquer Ceuta in North 
Africa, a rich Islamic trade centre. On 21 August the city fell.

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than a third of the capital's population and devastated the 
Algarve as well, had a profound effect on domestic politics and on European philosophical thought. From 1801, the country
was occupied during the Napoleonic Wars. The Portuguese Court fled to Brazil. Shortly after, Brazil proclaimed its 
independence, under the rule of the Portuguese King Pedro IV (Emperor Pedro I of Brazil), who abdicated from the Portuguese 
Crown and left his daughter D. Maria I as Queen in a liberal regime.

In 1910 a republican revolution deposed the Portuguese monarchy starting the First Republic. Political chaos, strikes, 
harsh relations with the Catholic Church, and considerable economic problems aggravated by a disastrous military 
intervention in the First World War led to a military coup d'etat in 1926, installing the Second Republic that would 
become the Estado Novo in 1933, led by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, an authoritarian right-wing dictatorship, which later 
evolved into a type of single party corporate regime. Later, Portugal became a founding member of NATO and EFTA, as well 
as OECD. India invaded and liberated Portuguese occupied parts of India in 1961. Independence movements also became active
in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea, and a series of colonial wars started.

The burden of the many colonial overseas wars and the lack of political and civil freedoms led to the end of the regime 
after the Carnation Revolution in April 25 of 1974, an effectively bloodless left-wing military coup, that promised to 
install a new democratic regime. In 1975, Portugal had its first free multi-party elections since 1926 and granted 
independence to its colonies in Africa.

In 1976 Indonesia invaded and annexed the Portuguese province of Timor in Asia before legal recognition of its independence
 by Portugal. In 1999, the Asian dependency of Macau, was returned to Chinese sovereignty, a process considered a success 
by China and Portugal. After a UN sponsored referendum endorsed by Indonesia and Portugal, in 1999, East Timor voted for 
independence, which materialised in 2002.

Currency : 1 escudo (PLN)= 100 gr.

Full information about stamps of Portugal you can find on site: www.ctt.pt

See also:
Azores	Madeira

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