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The PortugueseNumber
The first thing to say about the Portuguese people is how few of them there are: Portugal's population numbers only around 10.5 million, although an estimated 200 million people across the globe -- principally in Brazil -- speak Portuguese as their first language.
The next thing is how ethnically diverse they are: over the centuries the blood of Germanic and Iberian tribes, ancient ancestors of the Portuguese, has been mixed with that of the Romans, Phoenicians, Moors, and Carthaginians, not to mention the peoples from Portugal's former African and Asian colonies, including Angola, Mozambique, Macau, and East Timor.
Yet although skins may be either light or dark, and eyes the blue of Celt or the brown of Moor, the Portuguese character is remarkably uniform and self-contained. Their cosmopolitan ancestry has also, for the most part, made the Portuguese mercifully tolerant and free of discrimination.
Longing
National stereotyping is always a dangerous game, but in Portugal, as in any country, certain traits stand out as defining national characteristics. The Portuguese, for example, like to think of themselves as the least Latin of the Latin countries. They are quieter and more reserved than their Spanish and Italian counterparts, and their exuberance is tempered by a famously intangible sense of saudade, a word that has no English counterpart but can be loosely translated as "longing" or "nostalgic yearning."
Hospitality
The Portuguese are highly dignified in manner, and set great store by appearances. This is one of the reasons why children, rich or poor, are invariably well turned out, and why old folk take a lot of trouble to look spruce for their afternoon get-togethers in the village square.
Dignity and reserve, however, mask open-handed hospitality, for the Portuguese are more than usually generous and friendly. For this they must thank the Arab part of their heritage, with its tradition of courtesy to the stranger, together with the customs found in many Latin countries where poverty has somehow sharpened the sense of hospitality. The old ways are breaking down in Portugal, as they are almost everywhere, but one of the pleasures of a visit to the country -- especially in the more rural areas -- remains the warmth of the welcome extended to visitors.
Change
The approaching millennium finds the Portuguese in a state of flux. As Portugal changes, swept forward in a modernizing rush by a tide of European Union money, so the Portuguese, it seems, are changing as well. Old women in the countryside still wear black, old men still gather in the village square, but in the cities, towns, and beach resorts the young are largely indistinguishable from their European counterparts. The march of materialism, and with it the aspirations of a relatively enriched people, has done much to alter in the matter of a few years attitudes and traditional ways of life that had remained unchanged for centuries. Religious certainties and age-old traditions still hold sway in a few rural redoubts, but for the rest the Portuguese are, for better or worse, an increasingly secular people ever more inclined toward the mainstream of European life.
The LandVariety
Portugal is a small country, but one whose narrow bounds contain a huge variety of landscapes. In the far north, the crag-topped and barren mountains, scented with wildflowers, are the domain of the wind and lonely shepherds. Farther south, the high sierras give way to rippling green hills, pictures of pastoral perfection framing age-old smallholdings, whitewashed villages, and sun-dappled vineyards. Farther south again, in a great belt that stretches across a third of the country, lie the arid, sun-drilled plains of the Alentejo, a checkerboard of wheat fields and huge cork plantations. In the deep south, the Mediterranean takes stronger hold, cistus scenting the maquis-covered hills, almond and orange trees blossoming on the Algarve's mild-weathered margins.
Divisions
Most of northern Portugal forms part of the Meseta, the ancient mountainous block that embraces the greater part of the Iberian peninsula (its upland plains and mountain ranges extend across central Spain). Portugal is further linked to Spain by its two main rivers, the Tagus and the Douro, both of which cross the country but rise in Portugal's Iberian neighbor. The Tagus, Portugal's longest waterway, also marks the rough boundary between north and south. To the north, the climate is cooler, the farms smaller, and the people more conservative. The land is also higher (90 percent is over 1,300 feet), save on the coastal margins, whose plains, marshes, and flatlands fringe most of the country. At the same time, the coast embraces the beaches and fractured coves of the Algarve, the long duned-backed lagoons of the Atlantic, and the soaring windswept cliffs and headlands of Cape St. Vincent.
Nature
Portugal's fauna is as varied as its landscapes, its position meaning that it boasts species common to European, Mediterranean, and North African habitats. The wolf prowls the high mountains of the Serra da Estrela, while the rarest of all European big cats, the lynx, is still said to inhabit the wilder reaches of the Alentejo. Northern European mammals such as the rabbit, fox, and hare are all common, although many are subtly distinct subspecies peculiar to the Iberian peninsula.
Portugal's position relative to Africa also ensures a large number of birds, for the country lies astride the major migration routes of many central and Western European species. Similarly, position plays a crucial part in determining the country's flora, which also embraces species from widely differing habitats. In the northern interior, which generally speaking is lush, green, and damp, some 86 percent of all plants, trees, and flowers are European. In the south, however, the figure is just 29 percent, with some 46 percent of species being of Mediterranean origin.
