Portugal Flag
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| Portugal Flag |
Portugal, formally Portuguese Republic, Portuguese República Portuguesa, u . s . mendacity alongside the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. Once continental Europe`s finest power, Portugal stocks commonalities—geographic and cultural—with the international locations of each northern Europe and the Mediterranean. Its cold, rocky northern coast and mountainous indoors are moderately settled, scenic, and wild, even as the u . s .`s south, the Algarve, is heat and fertile. The rugged Estrela Mountains (Serra da Estrela, or “Star Mountain Range”), which lie among the Tagus and Mondego rivers, include the best factor of mainland Portugal
In the first millennium BCE the Celtic Lusitani entered the Iberian Peninsula and settled the land, and lots of strains in their impact remain. According to countrywide legend, though, Lisbon, the countrywide capital, changed into based now no longer through Celts however through the historic Greek warrior Odysseus, who changed into stated to have arrived at a rocky headland close to what's the present-day metropolis after leaving his place of origin to wander the sector and who, liking what he saw, stayed there for a even as; his departure changed into stated to have damaged the coronary heart of the nymph Calypso, who, the legend goes, grew to become herself right into a snake, her coils turning into the seven hills of Lisbon. Of course, had Odysseus in reality come to Portugal, he might have observed the land already nicely settled through the Lusitani
Lusitani tribes battled the Romans for generations earlier than acceding to empire, whereupon Rome installed numerous critical cities and ports; the Roman presence may be visible withinside the very call of the u . s ., which derives from Portus Cale, a agreement close to the mouth of the Douro River and the present-day metropolis of Porto. Later, the descendants of Romans and the Lusitani might stay below Moorish rule for numerous centuries till an impartial nation changed into installed.