Where is Portugal? Locating it on the map — Geography, 11–13
Placing mainland and island Portugal in the Peninsula, in Europe and in the world, with compass points and different scales.
Portugal at four scales
To say where Portugal is, you first choose a scale. In the world, it sits at the western edge of Europe, beside the Atlantic. In Europe, it occupies the south-west. In the Iberian Peninsula, which it shares with Spain, it takes the western strip. And Portugal also includes two Atlantic archipelagos: the Azores and Madeira. Each scale answers a different question about the same place.
Why one location is never enough
Saying "it's in Portugal" doesn't help someone looking for a street, and "it's in Lisbon" doesn't help someone who has never heard of Portugal. People who make maps and people who navigate have always needed to go from the wide view to the detail. Portuguese sailors of the 15th and 16th centuries relied on charts and reference points to know where they were and where they were heading.
A case: describing where Lisbon is
Step 1: in the world, Lisbon is at the western edge of Europe. Step 2: in the Peninsula, it is on the Atlantic coast, west of Madrid (a little to the south-west). Step 3: within mainland Portugal, Porto is north of Lisbon and Faro is south. Step 4: the Azores lie west of Lisbon, in the middle of the Atlantic, and Madeira lies to the south-west.
The trap: Portugal is not only the mainland
Two common mix-ups. First, thinking Portugal ends at the mainland — the Azores and Madeira are Portuguese territory, with many people living there. Second, treating "Iberian Peninsula" as another word for Spain. The Peninsula is a geographical unit; Portugal and Spain are two different countries that share most of it, along with two small territories, Andorra and Gibraltar.
Where you use this every day
Every time you use a GPS, a maps app or the weather forecast, someone has used these ideas for you: a point, a scale, a direction. You use them yourself when you tell someone "keep going north to the traffic light", or when the news shows the forecast for the Azores and Madeira next to the mainland's.
Keep exploring
Other languages
Loading MyLeoNes™…