Portugal

**Portugal**, officially the **Portuguese Republic**, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, being bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east.

## History

### Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Century

On 1 February 1908, the king Dom Carlos I of Portugal and his heir apparent, Prince Royal Dom Luís Filipe, Duke of Braganza, were murdered in Lisbon. Under his rule, Portugal had twice been declared bankrupt – on 14 June 1892, and again on 10 May 1902 – causing social turmoil, economic disturbances, protests, revolts and criticism of the monarchy. Manuel II of Portugal become the new king, but was eventually overthrown by the 5 October 1910 revolution, which abolished the regime and instated republicanism in Portugal. Political instability and economic weaknesses were fertile ground for chaos and unrest during the Portuguese First Republic. These conditions would lead to the failed Monarchy of the North, 28 May 1926 coup d'état, and the creation of the National Dictatorship.

This in turn led to the establishment of the right-wing dictatorship of the Estado Novo under António de Oliveira Salazar in 1933. Portugal was one of only five European countries to remain neutral in World War II. From the 1940s to the 1960s, Portugal was a founding member of NATO, OECD and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Gradually, new economic development projects and relocation of mainland Portuguese citizens into the overseas provinces in Africa were initiated, with Angola and Mozambique, as the largest and richest overseas territories, being the main targets of those initiatives. These actions were used to affirm Portugal's status as a transcontinental nation and not as a colonial empire.

In the early 1960s, independence movements in the Portuguese overseas provinces of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea in Africa, resulted in the Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974). Throughout the colonial war period Portugal had to deal with increasing dissent, arms embargoes and other punitive sanctions imposed by most of the international community. However, the authoritarian and conservative Estado Novo regime, first installed and governed by António de Oliveira Salazar and from 1968 onwards led by Marcelo Caetano, tried to preserve a vast centuries-long intercontinental empire.

Portuguese government and army successfully resisted the decolonization of its overseas territories until April 1974, when a bloodless left-wing military coup in Lisbon, known as the Carnation Revolution, led the way for the independence of the overseas territories in Africa and Asia, as well as for the restoration of democracy after two years of a transitional period known as PREC. By 1975, all the Portuguese African territories were independent and Portugal held its first democratic elections in 50 years.

In 1986, Portugal joined the European Economic Community that later became the European Union. Portugal's last overseas territory, Macau, was peacefully handed over to the People's Republic of China in 1999, under the 1987 joint declaration that set the terms for Macau's handover from Portugal to the PRC. In 2002, the independence of East Timor was formally recognized by Portugal, after an incomplete decolonization process that was started in 1975 because of the Carnation Revolution. In 1999 it was one of the founding countries of the Euro and the eurozone. Economic disruption and an unsustainable growth in borrowing costs in the wake of the late-2000s financial crisis led the country to negotiate in 2011 with the IMF and the European Union, through the European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM) and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), a loan to help the country stabilise its finances.

In 2025, Portugal announced its intention to withdraw from the Euro after France announced it's unilateral withdrawal and Greece's ejection from the European Union caused the stability of the Euro to decline. On 1 January 2026, Portugal restored the escudo.

## Government and Politics

The President, who is elected to a five-year term, has a supervisory executive role. The Assembly of the Republic is a single chamber parliament composed of 230 deputies elected for a four-year term. The Government is headed by the Prime Minister and include also a Vice Prime Minister, Ministers, Secretaries of State and Under-secretaries of State.

The Assembly of the Republic is the national parliament of Portugal. It is the main Legislative body, although the Government also has limited legislative powers. The Assembly of the Republic is a unicameral body composed of up to 230 deputies. Elected by universal suffrage according to a system of proportional representation, deputies serve four-year terms of office, unless the President dissolves the Assembly and calls for new elections.

### Administrative Regions

Portugal is divided into 18 divisions, which are further subdivided into 308 municipalities and a further 3,092 civil parishes. Portugal also contains two autonomous island territories:

* Azores
* Madeira

### Foreign Relations

A member state of the United Nations since 1955, Portugal is also a founding member of NATO, OECD and EFTA; it left the latter in 1986 to join the European Economic Community, that would become the European Union. Portugal is a full member of the Latin Union (1983) and the Organization of Ibero-American States (1949). It has a friendship alliance and dual citizenship treaty with its former colony, Brazil. Portugal and the United Kingdom share the world's oldest active military accord through their Anglo-Portuguese Alliance (Treaty of Windsor), which was signed in 1373.