1.General facts about Portugal
1.1. Location
Portugal is situated at the south-west point of Europe and also included the Madeira and Azores archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean. Mainland Portugal occupies and area of 88.889 km2. It is 218 km wide and 561 km long. It has 832 km of Atlantic coast and 1.215 km border with Spain.
The Azores are situated in the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and North America. They have an area of 2,355 km2 and consist of nine islands – Sao Miguel and Santa Maria in the Eastern Group, Terceira, Graciosa, Sao Jorge, Pisco and Faial in the Central Group and Flores and Corvo in the Western Group.
It takes about 2 hours to get from the Azores to mainland Portugal by plane.
The Madeira Archipelago has an area of 741km2 and lies in the Atlantic Ocean about 500km from the African coast and 1.000 km from the European continent (1,5 hours flying time from Lisbon). It consists of the islands of Madeira and Porto Santo and the uninhabited Desertas and Selvagens islands, which are nature reserves.
The rivers Duero, Tajo and Guadiana enter from Spain, cross the country of this a the west and end at the Atlantic. The north is mountainous; the center around Lisbon is flat and the coast of the south has enormous beaches that arrive until the region of the Algarve in the most southern zone of the country. …
