---

Portugal

---

Today's Featured Portugal Pottery Deals|

Although Portugal is a developed country and a high income country, its income per capita figure is one of the lowest among the EU''s member states. According to Eurostat, Portugal''s GDP per capita was registered at 80 per cent of the EU27 average in 2009, making it the tenth lowest in the Union.|

Scotland Yard investigators say that they believe that Madeleine McCann, the British toddler who vanished while on vacation with her parents in Portugal in 2007, may still be alive; they cite what they believe to be new evidence relating to her disappearance.|

6 minutes walk from Portugal Street|

Credit is harder to come by in some of more troubled euro zone countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece; many small and medium-size businesses are struggling to get loans that would help them rebuild, finding interest rates are much more expensive than in thriving European Union countries; situation is hampering economic recovery.|

The sea surface temperature on the west coast of mainland Portugal varies from 13–15 °C (55.4–59.0 °F) in winter to 18–20 °C (64.4–68.0 °F) in the summer while on the south coast it ranges from 15 °C (59.0 °F) in Winter and rises in the summer to about 23 °C (73.4 °F) occasionally reaching 26 °C (78.8 °F).|

Location: Lisbon, Portugal Duration: 3 hours 30 minutes (approx.)|

Football is the most popular sport in Portugal. There are several football competitions ranging from local amateur to world-class professional level. The legendary Eusébio is still a major symbol of Portuguese football history. FIFA World Player of the Year winners Luís Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo who won the FIFA Ballon d''Or for 2013, are among the numerous examples of other world-class football players born in Portugal and noted worldwide. Portuguese football managers are also noteworthy, with José Mourinho, André Villas-Boas, Fernando Santos, Carlos Queiroz and Manuel José among the most renowned.|

German finance and labor ministers sign agreements with their counterparts in Portugal and Spain, to help curb stubbornly high youth unemployment in European Union.|

Government of Portugal's Prime Min Pedro Passos Coelho fends off collapse, for the time being, but Portugal joins other crisis-hit euro countries left badly weakened by sharp divisions over the austerity approach and angry debates over how much more pain weary citizens can take.|

During the Reconquista period, Christians reconquered the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim and Moorish domination. A victory over the Muslims at the Battle of Ourique in 1139 is traditionally taken as the occasion when the County of Portugal as a fief of the Kingdom of León was transformed into the independent Kingdom of Portugal.|

Iberian bilateral state-supported research efforts include the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory and the Ibercivis distributed computing platform, which are joint research programmes of both Portugal and Spain. Portugal is a member of several pan-European scientific organizations. These include the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), ITER, and the European Southern Observatory (ESO).|

Portugal spearheaded the European exploration of the world and undertook the Age of Discovery. Prince Henry the Navigator, son of King João I, became the main sponsor and patron of this endeavour. During this period, Portugal explored the Atlantic Ocean, discovering several Atlantic archipelagos like the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde, explored the African coast as well as colonizing selected areas of Africa, discovered an eastern route to India that rounded the Cape of Good Hope, discovered Brazil, explored the Indian Ocean and established trading routes throughout most of southern Asia, and sent the first direct European maritime trade and diplomatic missions to China and Japan.|

The total fertility rate (TFR) as of 2013 was estimated at 1.51 children born/woman, which is below the replacement rate of 2,1. In 2013, 47.6% of births were to unmarried women. Like most Western countries, Portugal has to deal with low fertility levels: the country has experienced a sub-replacement fertility rate since the 1980s.|

On 26 March 1995, Portugal started to implement Schengen Area rules, eliminating border controls with other Schengen members while simultaneously strengthening border controls with non-member states. In 1996 the country was a co-founder of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) headquartered in Lisbon. Expo ''98 took place in Portugal and in 1999 it was one of the founding countries of the Euro and the eurozone.|

---