Talk:Portugal Voyage Tips and guide

• GetAround:ByCar: does the diesel called petrol on some of gas stations (which have a small-texted 'diesel' next to it) really fits well any diesel-engine car? Is it purely a marketing trick to force buying their premium brand of diesel fuel? --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 18:08, 10 October 2009 (EDT)

There are mostly two types of car fuel. Either petrol, which is called 'gasolina' or diesel which is called, either 'gasóleo' or 'diesel'. Diesel cars will, obviously take all forms of diesel, including the premium varieties. Note that in Portugal, diesel has historically been cheaper than petrol due to state subsidies. 203.125.122.2 03:50, 26 October 2009 (EDT)

"Thanks to generous government susidies, rail travel in Portugal is often cheaper and faster than travel by bus."

I am portuguese and do believe that claim to only be true when not travelling by rail out of suburban areas. I.e., if you want to go from Lisbon to Coimbra, it'd be cheaper by bus than by train.

(WT-en) cael 15:24, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Along the line between Braga and Faro, passing through Porto, Aveiro, Coimbra, Lisbon and Setubal, the trains are excellent but the fares are slightly more expensive than the bus fares.

I agree this is definitely not true--at least for the major routes from Lisboa to Faro, Coimbra, Porto, etc. the bus is always cheaper. I think three people is enough to change this.

Update: I wrote the first line (along the line between Braga...). Usually when trains are good, the train is a bit more expensive than the bus. This is what it was happening. However, given the recent records in oil prices, the train between Lisbon-Algarve is again a bit cheaper than the bus (even the excellent Alfa-Pendular train).

I concur to that. Trains are somewhat more expensive, take longer (like 1h50 vs 1h20) and have less destinations than buses, but are slightly more comfortable and less tiresome.

It's worth noting that train ticket prices can be much less expensive (-40%) when purchased at least five days in advance. It requires a bit of pre planning, so, if someone is rather sloppy with organization, it won't work but if the majority of one's travels are to be by rail and one put's in the effort, it will save a pretty penny. CharlieCares (talk) 15:02, 14 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

The "Vinho Verde" is not made from grapes that aren't mature. That is a myth. I live in the region (Guimarães) and have participated in some harvests and I can assure that the grapes are fully developed and matured as with any other wine. The name "Vinho Verde" comes from the sparkling, fresh nature of the wine.

What about the Azores and Madeira archipelagos? Not only are they beautyfull destinations but they are also regions of Portugal. Why aren't they mentioned in the article or displayed in the map?

Because they're waiting for you to add them :P -- I've just seen they're here Azores Madeira -- (WT-en) Simone 08:29, 21 Jan 2006 (EST)

Also, both Madeira and the Azores are quite humid and green. Only the island of Porto Santo is dry.

Politically, mainland Portugal is known as "Portugal continental" and the archipelagos of Azores and Madeira, as "região autónoma dos Açores" and "região autónima da Madeira". For example, just as Hawaii is part of the USA, being autonomous, does not mean the insular areas shouldn't be considered part of Portugal. The much lower volume of visitors to Azores and Madeira compared to mainland Portugal, is most likely behind the paupacity of attention given in this forum. CharlieCares (talk) 22:19, 12 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Portugal's regions seems to be in a bit of a mess. There are regions articles for Central Portugal, Northern Portugal and others that are not linked from Portugal and those contain some of the same links that appear under Portugal#Regions.

I'm going to attempt a bit of a cleanup on those and propose the following:

• Portugal
  • Northern Portugal
    • Minho
    • Douro
    • Gerês
    • Trás-os-montes
  • Beiras
    • Beira Litoral
    • Beira Alta
    • Beira Baixa
  • Estremadura
  • Central Portugal
    • Ribatejo
    • Alentejo
  • Lisbon Region
    • Bairrada
    • Estoril Coast
  • Algarve
    • San Rafael
  • Azores Islands
  • Madeira Islands

Having done some reading on where the EU is heading I think it might be wise if we restructure the above to conform to the NUTS II devisions. --(WT-en) NJR_ZA 02:54, 24 October 2007 (EDT)

Where are we on this? Does our current regions scheme match this map? If so, we should add it to the article. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 02:35, 24 January 2008 (EST)

I've seen no feedback, so I'll go ahead and implement this. That map is almost a match, just seem to be missing Estremadura, I'll use it as a template to create a WT map --(WT-en) Nick 06:06, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

I regret to tell you that Bairrada is not in the Lisbon Region, but a few km from Coimbra. And that San Rafael with a Spanish spelling seems to be near San Francisco, USA; I don't know of any São Rafael in the Algarve which might be more noticeable and well known than, say, Sagres. I also would have strong doubts to file the Alentejo as Central Portugal, but the classification, NUTS or not, seems to be a mixup of traditional divisions (those people know) and artificial ones.

I love how this stuff happens. I once was commissioned to get photos for a brochure; we went around all the publications for a given region, and all of them mentioned the important Pelourinho in a certain town. We went to that town looking for the Pelourinho and it had been taken down and removed about 45-50 years ago, but none of the travel writers had checked it in reality, they just copied each other's. But the Pelourinho was certainly well referenced, eh eh.

That's actually precisely why Wikivoyage is useful. If any traveler, or even any resident of any city sees something that is incorrect, they can simply log on and change it. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 03:59, 24 March 2009 (EDT)

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the boundaries for the current regions. Cobbling together information from wikipedia:Political_divisions_of_Portugal#NUTS_II_and_III:_regions_and_subregions, I've put together a draft map, but I don't think it really matches our current regions scheme (no Central Portugal region!). We'll need input from someone who knows the country better than I do before we can finish this map. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 15:13, 19 November 2009 (EST)

Since we have a house in Algarve I'm pretty well viced with that area, but I'm afraid anything North of Lisbon remains a big gray hole. I can try asking my parents tomorrow since they spend alot of time down there. But this and especially this is much closer to my (possible flawed) mental map of Portugal. The national tourism organisation have moved away from that definition, and now uses something closer to yours now, I'm not entirely convinced by the way we usually do regions that the former is not the right one for us, and maybe a bit more fine grained national hierarchy, we can do away with the provinces for the foreseeable future. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^talk 15:37, 19 November 2009 (EST)

The NUTS division [1] of Portugal seems a good way to divide the country. The Tourist Agency of Portugal [2] uses a slightly different approach as it also boasts a separate Lisbon region. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 18:42, 10 May 2010 (EDT)

The portuguese article seems to have a good division of Portugal. Basically, this is how they divide the country:

• North
  • Minho
  • Douro Litoral (Coastal Douro)
  • Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (Trás-os-Montes and Upper Douro)
• North-Center/Beiras
  • Beira Alta (Upper Beira)
  • Beira Litoral (Coastal Beira)
  • Beira Baixa (Lower Beira)
• South-Center
  • Estremadura
  • Ribatejo
  • Alto Alentejo (Upper Alentejo)
• South
  • Baixo Alentejo (Lower Alentejo)
  • Algarve
• Regiões Autónomas (Autonomous Regions)
  • Madeira
  • Açores

And besides that, they already have a map. --188.81.96.113 09:17, 11 September 2010 (EDT)

Cool, I'll get around to fixing up the boundaries on the one I made above (which has a bit more detail than the pt version's one), and we can call this a wrap. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 18:07, 22 February 2011 (EST)

Did this initiative stall? Just looked up Beja, has breadcrumbs Portugal > North Central Portugal > Alentejo > Beja, but if you look on the region map it is in Southern Portugal and is mentioned on Baixo Alentejo. --Traveler100 (talk) 04:41, 29 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

The latest regional demarcations and denominations have a relationship with the new policy decision of devolving certain governing powers together with a large proportion of those locally generated taxes, to those same local authorities. Some of the reasoning for the new policy has to do with depopulation problems in certain areas coupled with the fiscal viability to run affected municipalities. Other reasons revolve around the fact that the central government is well aware of the need to keep populations from abandoning rural areas for urban centers and how to go about reversing the negative population growth, plus the need to reduce bureaucracy and central government interference, while allowing each region to have the capacity to micromanage their own backyards, hence the shifting around. Having said that, I can't tell with certainty what is going to be like chartographically speaking, but the map shown here appears to be incorrect insofar the Estremadura and Ribatejo regions delineations are concerned. This situation being a new development, I reckon it will be awhile before official maps begin to show the layout accurately. Btw, the scale standard shown looks out of proportion in relation to the map size. CharlieCares (talk) 21:32, 12 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

This cities list should be reduced to 9, per The 7±2 rule. Would someone who knows the country please trim the list. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 02:37, 24 January 2008 (EST)

I would propose Braga and Guimarães for removal, eventually also Aveiro and Viseu. They are certainly important historically, but aren't worth a detour, as reading about them is certainly enough. I mean by that that what's there is also almost anywhere else, if by another, less magnificent designation, well maybe the Sameiro near Braga if you want. The possible exceptions are the Aveiro region (the museum and the Costa Nova typical architectura are cute) or the Grão Vasco Museum at Viseu if you like ancient art enough.

Faro is now missing, I think it should definitely be included. It is the center of tourism in the south. But which city should go? --(WT-en) globe-trotter 09:07, 24 February 2011 (EST)

The Algarve region hardly needs to be given anymore prominence. There are whole articles from different sources dealing with the that region of Portugal and also Lisbon. On the other hand, with the exception of Oporto, the center and north regions lack sufficient exposure and I feel it's obtuse to suggest cutting out the cities you mentioned. To include south cities in lieu of Braga, Guimarães, Aveiro and Viseu for example, in my humble opinion, would constitute a disservice towards the attempts being made to showcase areas of Portugal that definetely are worth a detour and have lots to offer in terms of turism but are relatively unknown by outsiders. For example; past attempts to reactivate the Douro valley railway line from Peso da Régua to Pocinho/Foz do Côa, has failed due to a lack of business interest to make it economically viable. If you know the region, imagine the asset such a service would be for the tourism industry. Also, there's Chaves and the Spa industry not to mention the possibilities for rural tourism in the Tras-dos-Montes region. Therefore I say, leave it as it is please. CharlieCares (talk) 14:51, 14 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

"Southeast Portugal is connected by international train (linha do Leste and linha de Caceres) [Elvas/Caia,Portugal & Bagajoz,Spain] or [Marvao-Beira, Portugal & Valencia de Alcantara, Spain.]"

Simply not true. The track is there but passenger trains stop at Évora or Beja. That's what you get by reading "references" from armchair tourists instead of going there.

An anonymous user has been adding a lot of good info to this article, but that info appears to be copied from another web site and does not follow the Project:Country article template. To the user: if you are the original author of information please create an account and then add a statement to this talk page saying who you are and that you wrote the info, otherwise we have to assume that it is a copyright violation. Second, please break up that info and include it under the standard section headings of this article - see the previously mentioned country article template for details. In the interim the contribution will need to be reverted as we can't risk having content on Wikivoyage that is not licensed under the CC-SA license. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 08:35, 6 September 2008 (EDT)

This is incorrect. It is forbidden, and subject to a fine, to smoke in public enclosed spaces. By closed, according to the law, it is meant anything with a cover and two or more walls (a rudimentary shelter). It doesn't apply, say, to a train station platform with a cover and a single wall.

In restauration and hotelry it is allowed to have smokers' bedrooms and smokers' designated areas. These depend on details such as minimum and maximum surface, ventilation and clear separation, which are sometimes difficult to implement by the owners. Small surfaces can opt for smokers or non smokers on all the surface provided ventilation is adequate.

The presence of "No Smokers" and "Smokers" sign is mandatory and its absence is subject to a fine. Almost all fines regarding the application of the law have resulted from the absence of "No Smokers" signs.

The law is being very well adhered to.

I somewhat disagree that the pastéis de Belém are just as good there as anywhere else, but the rest about it is correct. Anyway, it's a matter of personal preference - I like them fresh, not made two days ago and straight from the refrigerator. --(WT-en) Xyzt1234 18:22, 15 September 2008 (EDT)

I find it odd that in the Stay Safe section two references popped up picturing gipsies and only gipsies as evildoers. Further ahead the maximum ATM withdrawal is referred to as being 500 euros, which is untrue -- it's 2x200 euros (400 euros). Some ill informed person(s) are going about the page.

I have not been deleting ill-informed opinions, even when my contrary opinion was deleted in the first place, due to the policy of adding, not deleting; but there's no point in cooperating if someone systematically destroys what your enter. --(WT-en) Xyzt1234 04:23, 21 October 2008 (EDT)

I didn't do those edits, but I've spend a lot of time in Portugal since my parent's have a house there, and gypsies are a problem - period (I've had troubles myself). While I agree that we should not be xenophobic around here, I don't think it's good dancing around the issue either, in the name of political correctness - the mission here should be to keep the traveler safe. Of course we shouldn't leave the impression that all gypsies are criminals, or they are the only ones doing crime in Portugal - but reading the paragraph, i don't think it leaves that impression - as the examples are pretty specific. Regarding the ATM withdrawals, any nonfactual information should naturally be corrected. (WT-en) Sertmann 05:19, 21 October 2008 (EDT)

You're right, many gipsies are a problem, in more than one way; but as you mention, they aren't the only ones; plain whites do it, blacks do it, indians do it, chinese do it (as you mention).

I really don't care about political correcteness (duh) and I still like to call things by their names (reason why I titled this "Xenophobia?", question mark); but being unfair/partial/erroneous is another stuff, I think. It would be terrible to make people think that they're safe provided there are no gipsies around or something. Personally I get much more nervous when I see a gang of youngsters of any ethnic group, for instance, and maybe anyone in Lisbon and around it has been harassed or robbed by second grade young people and developed strategies to cope with it, and they usually work fine.

If you feel that the text as it is doesn't leave the impression that gipsies and only them are the evildoers around here I rest my case, as my understanding of English language connotations is certainly not as good.--(WT-en) Xyzt1234 08:05, 22 October 2008 (EDT)

If one classifies "gypsies" as a ethnic group within the Portuguese society, then, the whole social stratification has to be taken into account. By in large, the Portuguese gypsies have been socially integrated for many decades and includes everyone ranging from wealthy business people to middle class "white collar professionals" and artisans, taxi drivers, factory workers to footballers, sportsmen/woman and also troublemakers and criminals. It's a fact of life as anywhere else, including Scandinavian, Germanic, Anglo-Saxon and Northern or Eastern European origin. To find a box and place all gypsies in it, is not only a very superficial thoughtless opinion showing a lack of sufficient understanding about the so called "gypsies", it comes across as the result of a very sheltered and intolerant upbringing. Certainly, many people can make a nuisance of themselves and in my own experience, albeit always a minority, such people come from all ethnicities, language groups, colours, races and creeds. On the other hand, in my own experience, by far, the vast majority of the above mentioned people, tend to be either neutral, well behaved, exemplary or even helpful when the situation calls and this includes "gypsies". So, I think there's a tendency from the better economical well off groups to sneer or even detest the impoverished and not attempt any contact whatsoever. Therefore, I recomend next time someone better well off sees some lesser well off people camping or squatting nearby their properties, to try and make some contact to find out a little more about those people's lives. Maybe it will turn out they are really bad rogues or maybe they are just poor but proud and honest people. Who knows? The fact is, if we are all afraid to make contact and instead, rather sit in judgement from afar, how in the heck will anyone ever know what's going on... CharlieCares (talk) 18:45, 17 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

"Portugal is generally a safe country to travel, except when driving or crossing the streets. Driving is reckless. Do not rent a car or take coaches as sadly, road accidents are an integral part of daily life on Portuguese roads."

Really? Crossing the streets in the cities is easier than in many European countries (drivers seemed quicker to stop for pedestrians than I've experienced elsewhere), and driving, especially on the nice new toll highways, is very easy. And advising the traveler to not take a coach? Ridiculous! I don't know if this was written as a prank or by someone with a phobia of cars, but it gives the reader entirely the wrong impression.

(Admittedly, Portugal has the highest rate of accident fatalities of similar car-friendly countries--http://www.factbook.net/EGRF_Regional_analyses_HMCs.htm--but the odds of an accident are still quite low enough that the traveler should not have unreasonable fear.) —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 131.107.0.104 (talk • contribs)

I second your opinion: after 2 weeks of driving around the country (outside major cities) and after several days of walking in Lisbon, I can't say it's anything more risky in Portugal: walking than elsewhere in Europe, or driving than in Spain or Greece. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 07:20, 22 September 2009 (EDT)

I've just removed this piece as it's too controversial. We need to rewrite it to better reflect the reality, if we decide to keep something like that at all. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 17:58, 10 October 2009 (EDT)

I am also removing this piece from GetAround:ByCar, as it's equally controversial:

[Other Portuguese cities often have] insane round-abouts which requires confident driving to get through and out safely. In most cities, the lack of indication signals makes it an adventure strictly for locals. You can see your destination and still be unable to get there. Parking legally is very difficult if not impossible.

I question this:

• what's insane about round-abouts, and how it affects safety?
• what indication signals are meant here?
• what exactly does 'makes it an adventure strictly for locals' imply?
• what prevents from getting to destination one can see?
• what's wrong with parking; what cities/towns does it really apply to? (clearly not all, even not to most of them)

--(WT-en) DenisYurkin 18:03, 10 October 2009 (EDT)

I have to say that after reading the topic "Respect" in the main article i was wowed. Im portuguese myself and i may say that that section of the article is disgustful. It cames across as portuguese are violent people that fell offended easily and that cant't discuss political or ideological issues, like, bullfight, galician status, past slave trade, abortion, etc ... The topic even suggests "keep the opinion to yourself or to be cautious when sharing it" or "bullfight supporters tend to have a violent character" or even "Portuguese will find them far-fetched, adequate to fringe activists, shrug them off and suggest you to pick an interesting conversation subject instead." Im amazed that someone can say that about portuguese people. I actually think that speaking about this issues is a great way to have an interesting conversation. Those are not sensitive issues at all and you should not avoid them fearing that you will get negative reactions. Thats simply silly. The person that wrote this topic surely doesn't know portuguese culture at all and writes in basis of his/hers misconception of the portuguese people. 85.138.122.94 14:55, 26 June 2010 (EDT)

Well, plunge forward and make the necessary changes. Unfortunately, the Respect section generally attracts a lot of sillyness. --(WT-en) globe-trotter 15:32, 26 June 2010 (EDT)

Just did it. Fell free to help specially with the English =) There is much to be improved in the article and in this topic. I will try to help improving the article in the near future. (WT-en) Tacv 00:00, 27 June 2010 (EDT)

I'll help where I can :) --(WT-en) globe-trotter 06:38, 28 June 2010 (EDT)

Source of my edit about minimum passport validity:

Article 9 of Act 23/2007 (4 July 2007) of the Portuguese Republic says that the travel document of non-Portuguese citizens "must bear a validity date which supersedes the duration of the stay".

However, foreign citizens who are required to apply for a visa in order to enter the Schengen Area need to submit a passport with a validity of at least three months beyond their period of stay at the time of making their visa application (in practice this restriction means that visa nationals must have a passport valid for 3 months beyond their departure date). (WT-en) Jakeseems 09:08, 23 July 2011 (EDT)

A question about this article's subject has been asked in the tourist office. Please consider copying any useful information across to this article. You can find the question and its answers here: Wikivoyage:Tourist_Office/Archives/March#Pilgrimage_route_through_Portugal--Nick (talk) 20:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC) Reply

I would like to reopen this, as I am not sure much good was achieved with the current division. Does anybody in the world ever go to visit "North Central Portugal"? It seems like we created entirely artificial regions nobody else uses with names that do not refer to anything, which only add a layer over actually existing regions, such as Algarve, Alentejo or the Lisbon Region. Moreover, some further subregions are either almost empty, only containing one destination, or mutually overlapping, containing a list of destinations that would basically fit the region above them as well.

I believe that, given the number of destinations that we currently cover and that could reasonably be covered within foreseeable future given the amount of editors interested in Portugal, we should have only one regional level before the city/destination level - e.g. Portugal > Lisbon Region > Lisbon, or Portugal > Algarve > Faro. As concerns the division, I like how Portugal is divided into NUTS II, while if we find that we need extra split, we may refer to the 1998 regions. That would give us less ambigious, more straighforward and more usefully-named regions and help reduce the number of perpetually empty articles that make navigation harder.

What do you guys think? PrinceGloria (talk) 20:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

The region breakdown came from our Portuguese site. I wasn't part of the discussion but maybe there was a feeling that PT would know the best way to break Portugal into regions?

Anyway, I don't know enough about Portugal to know if NUTS II makes for good travel regions. I like the idea of flattening the regions (if it makes sense) and your proposed breakdown looks very similar to Tourism Portugal's regional breakdown. Hopefully other people will weigh in. -Shaundd (talk) 06:02, 1 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

There's also an Alentejo page that's somewhat orphaned right now. Under the current scheme, it should be split between South-Central and Southern Portugal, but I'll leave it be pending the outcome of this discussion. In the meantime, let's note it here so it doesn't get lost. -Shaundd (talk) 06:17, 1 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for weighing in! My implied impression was that our Portuguese brethren know Portugal so well that artificial regions don't bother them much, most of them know what is where anyway. This becomes a problem for a wider audience, where this is not the case. I hope we can get a broader consensus here and move forward, as the current situation is a mess and does not help anybody looking for some guidance. PrinceGloria (talk) 07:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

PS. VisitPortugal basically uses NUTS II.

Shaundd, PrinceGloria, I also support a change to NUTS II, and yes those regions already coexist with the current hierarchical regions, and still other layers of regions which don't fit with either scheme, and it's a big freaking mess.

So, to be clear. The proposed major mainland regions already exist, but to make the change we need to sort out what to do with the existing subregions too.

• Northern Portugal - identical to the region of the current hierarchy
• Central Portugal - should include Beira Litoral, Beira Alta, and Beira Baixa and there should be a fourth region to cover the coastal part south of Beira Baixa, not sure what that would be
• Lisbon Region - presumably the same as the existing article. It is unclear whether the two existing subregions cover the area comprehensively. Personally I think they should be merged back and covered in the Lisbon Region articles.
• Alentejo - article already exists. Alentejo Central and Baixo Alentejo (moved up from Southern Portugal exist and would presumably belong here, and an Alto Alentejo and Alentejo Litoral are redlinked but it is unclear where the boudaries between those would lie exactly (the historical provinces appear to have been Alentejo Alto and Alentejo Baixo). I don't know whether these four subregions together are reasonable or if we should go with Alto/Baixo only, and I don't whether these historical Alentejo portions alone would cover the whole modern region comprehensively or if there are gaps/other regions.
• Algarve - Same as the current article, only it would be moved to the top level.

Alternately, we could scrap (merge/redirect) the second-level subregions altogether, which would leave us with approximately 19 destinations for Northern Portugal, 19 for Central, 14 for the Lisbon region, 13 for Alentejo, and 18 for the Algarve. Personally, given that it's already pushing it with the long lists, and given the plethora of historical region names to use and the fact we already have articles for them, some of them with information already, I don't think it worthwhile to go out of our way merging and eliminating these, and there is a lot of room for our Portugal coverage to grow, so those lists are only going to get more unwieldly if we group them all back together. I'd say we should just sort them out as indicated above.

Either way, as a consequence of the top-level change, Estremadura and Ribatejo will both become extra-hierarchical regions, split between Lisbon Region, Alentejo, and Central and overlapping in large part with other too (probably one or both of these should be an extraregion even if we don't change the existing hierarchy scheme).

Soo.....What's our next step? Texugo (talk) 00:35, 20 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I guess we need to:

1. Link to NUTS 2 regions from the main page
2. Ensure that the articles on the NUTS 2 regions contain the correct subregions and destinations
   1. Within that task - amend the geographical coverage of subregions if they do not fit into one NUTS 2 region each
3. Ask a merciful user with skills and a bit of goodwill to amend the Wikimap of Portugal to reflect NUTS 2 regions and, in due time perhaps, also maps for the five NUTS 2 subregions

Since there isn't really much content and only five regions to take care of, I guess we can begin right away and we needn't make a more detailed plan since there is little chance we can step on each other's toes. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:38, 20 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

PS. I'd do away with Estremadura and Ribatejo. The article's (as almost all articles on regions of Portugal) do not contain much and I see no reason to maintain them. We can mention in the Centro article that it includes much of the historic provinces of Estremadura and Ribatejo, and that Estremadura was also historically considered to contain the Lisbon Region. And we're done with all there needs to be said.

PS2. Category:Southern Portugal can now be deleted. I believe all the breadcrumb trails have been amended to point to Algarve instead, but perhaps there is a way of double-checking if everything is alrighty. The next step would be to replace South Central Portugal with Alentejo.

PS3. Category:South Central Portugal and Category:North Central Portugal can now be deleted. Category:Central Portugal may need to be updated. User:Texugo, I believe that you have the necessary privileges to do that, perhaps you could also check if all breadcrumbs are in order.

Hi PrinceGloria, thanks for the pleasant cooperation!

I've got Alentejo all sorted now, and with the addition of Lezíria do Tejo its subdivision scheme is complete, comprehensive, and easy to discern. There are still a total of only 12 or so destinations split into the now 5 subregions, but it's quite a large area with a lot of room for new city articles, so I don't think upmerging everything to a single Alentejo region would be desirable.

For Lisbon Region, you may have noticed that I upmerged the half-arsed region breakdown to a single Lisbon Region article. I'm not seeing a need to break it down beyond that, at least for now.

I also did some work on Central Portugal, getting rid of Estremadura and Ribatejo as discussed. I think we may need to reconsider its subdivision scheme though. It currently uses the historical provinces of Beira Alta, Beira Baixa, and Beira Litoral, but they don't match well with the borders of the modern districts, and with the shape of the new Central Portugal region, that leaves out an odd shaped area comprised of at least the smaller districts of w:Médio Tejo and w:Oeste (intermunicipal community) and parts of w:Pinhal Litoral and possibly a couple of others. w:Leiria District is close but inexact. So... I think we might want to stop using the Beiras and find another way to subdivide here - I do think it needs subdivision because its a large and geographically diverse area. However, I'm not sure the best way to do it. The NUTS3 subregions in this region are too small and too many (12) to be of best use. About 3-4 regions would probably be perfect. Any ideas?

Texugo (talk) 12:28, 22 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I've got the various pieces needed to update the map, so I'm aiming to get that done in the next couple of days. -Shaundd (talk) 15:38, 22 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Great! Looking forward to it! Texugo (talk) 17:41, 22 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

User:Shaundd - looking forward to it as well, thank you!

User:Texugo - I did not want Estremadura and Ribatejo to become top-level regions, as they'd mess up the rather useful and nicely split division by NUTS II, and I'd hate to maintain prominent "extraregions" when we found such a nice and MECE way to split Portugal. But then I thought that Estremadura and Ribatejo, understood as the part thereof which is NOT covered by the Lisbon Region, would fit in nicely as subregions (or merged together as one subregion - Estremadura and Ribatejo) of the Central Portugal region. I think they complement Beiras very nicely. We needn't worry if the borders aren't exact - is there much of the Beiras that doesn't fall into Central Portugal? PrinceGloria (talk) 21:13, 22 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

(ec)The new map is up. Let me know if any changes are needed.

Regarding the new top level regions:

• Are Lisbon and Algarve strictly NUTS II with no further subdivision?
• Do Alentejo's five subregions match NUTS III (it looks like they do, but I just want to confirm)?

I don't have time to draw subregion maps right now, but if those regions are broken down according to the NUTS structure, it will simplify making the maps in the future! -Shaundd (talk) 22:24, 22 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ PrinceGloria - It was an appealingly simple idea, but looking at the maps, I think that would be too far off to fudge it. Have a look and see what you think:

Central Portugal - target to be covered

Beira covers most of the target, but the remainder constitutes less than half of Estremadura. Estremadura also covers all the Lisbon Region and part of the Alentejo.

Ribatejo coincides with much of inland Estremadura, but less than a third actually coincides with the Central Portugal region we are trying to subdivide

So to call the non-Beira part of Central Portugal "Estremadura and Ribatejo" would strike me as really off, since that portion doesn't even contain half of either one. Any further ideas/thoughts? Texugo (talk) 22:21, 22 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Shaundd, the map is looking great. Thanks so much for getting on it so fast. My only suggestion would be for slightly more contrasting color choices (or maybe just a bit more saturation) between Central and Alentejo, and between Lisbon Region and the ocean. Might be easier to make out the borders that way. Just a thought.

To answer your questions about second level regions:

• Northern Portugal is currently subdivided into 3 regions: Minho, Douro Litoral, and Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, according to the 1936 provinces as shown at right.
• Algarve and Lisbon Region are not divided
• Alentejo, well, that's what we're trying to work out above...

Texugo (talk) 22:42, 22 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

On Estremadura and Ribatejo

User:Texugo - regarding Estremadura and Ribatejo, I wanted to do away with them not to muddle up the NUTS2 division precisely, and I certainly did not want to have Estremadura as an "extraregion". On the one hand, we can do away with Estremadura simply, on the other, I was thinking that the "Centro" NUTS 2 covers the traditional area which became known as "Beiras" and the coastal part of Estremadura north of Lisbon (the NUTS 3 called "Oeste": File:LocalNUTS3Oeste.svg.

Now, while the ancient province of Estremadura covered what later became Ribatejo as well, most modern sources identify "Estremadura" with the very said piece of coast north of Lisbon - see maps: [3], [4] (for some reason it is mostly vintners that still care about Estremadura). So, I guess we have a perfect solution - the parts of our region "Centro" which makes it different from "Beiras" shall be called "Estremadura", and in the "Understand" section of the latter article we might explain that historically Estremadura covered the Lisbon Region and even Ribatejo at some points. This way, Óbidos finally gets a subregion, as does Peniche (which ended up in the Lisbon Region for unknown reasons).

Similarly, if we decide Alentejo needs regions at all (there is precious little content pertaining to destinations there and mostly laundry lists of red links to places somebody though might be important), we may call the part that is NOT traditionally Alentejo for what it is - Ribatejo.

So both may be revived in our hierarchy as subregions, rather than top-level regions, but God forbid we create "extraregions" when they are not necessary. If canoeing down the river Tagus would be one of the main tourist attractions to Portugal, we could make "River Tagus" and extraregion, but the way Portugal is I see no reason to create any.

The map

User:Shaundd, hats off! Thank you for acting so quickly, this is brilliant. I was actually wanting to list my gripes with the old map but I thought nobody will make a new one so quickly so I put that off - unfortunately, those got carried over, so in case you would be revisiting the map following Texugo's comments, could you kindly look into the following?

• Ponta Delgada and the associated airport icon is missing from the Azores
• Madeira Islands could be labeled ABOVE their box rather than over its border for better legibility
• There is mess in the Norte. Perhaps you could move the scale to the bottom of the ocean part of the map (and thus nudge the Azores and Madeira a bit up), and then a few changes enhancing legiblity could be done:

1. Viana de Castelo label could go over the ocean
2. Penada-Geres NP label could be moved completely over Spain
3. The regional label (Northern Portugal) could go a bit up
4. Guimaraes label could go a bit east not to overlap with the grey road

• In general - we may have to amend our style guide for maps to emphasize the need for putting labels over monotone backgrounds wherever possible. I'd even prefer arrows if there is not enough place for tightly-packed destinations in areas where rivers, roads, airports and regional borders intersect. Otherwise the map is unlegible.
• I see no point in singling out Merida - it's a map of Portugal, not Spain

PS. I don't think we would be using NUTS 3 for subregions - they are sadly too numerous and too meaningless to the traveller. The traditional provinces as per the map posted by Texugo above will probably prevail.

But the NUTS3 subregions for Alentejo work perfectly and prevent us from having to use a wildly inaccurate Ribatejo label for the non-traditional section. For lack of any better idea, I suppose I could be OK with using "Extremadura" for the non-Beira part of Central Portugal (though a map would help matters immensely), but I'd much rather keep the current Alentejo breakdown with Lazíria do Tejo, since it is the correct and current description of exactly that area. Texugo (talk) 02:04, 26 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

On consideration (voiced in Talk:Alentejo), I don't think Alentejo needs regions. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:21, 26 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I've made most of the above changes to the map (not uploaded yet though). Are there any objections if I add the airport for Funchal to the map, as well? It's the only one of the five airports listed in Get in that's not included now. -Shaundd (talk) 22:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Can it be done without obscuring half the island? The island isn't much bigger than the icon itself. If it can't be made to look good without blocking the shape of the island, I'd say it's not really worth bothering with. Texugo (talk) 23:02, 26 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I can do what I did on the Tuvalu map where I placed the icon after the name of the city. If I place the icon at the airport's location, it will, as you say, take up half the island. -Shaundd (talk) 04:29, 27 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, Shaundd! I realized I forgot to mention Funchal, which is probably Portugal's best-known airport, silly me... I like your idea of putting the airport icon next to the city name label - in that scale, it doesn't really matter whether the airport is slightly to the north or slightly to the east of the small dot that indicates where the city is, and it helps unclutter the map. I also wouldn't be against using a different colour for Madeira just to make sure it stands out amidst the ocean more. PrinceGloria (talk) 04:35, 27 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

OK, the updated map is up. It may take a page/cache refresh to view. Let me know if any further changes are needed. Cheers -Shaundd (talk) 05:16, 30 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks Shaundd, it's just brilliant. I don't think we need to ask you to tinker with it any further - what we need now is to fill in the articles with even the most basic of content - most are empty, or totally woeful. PrinceGloria (talk) 05:32, 30 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

PS. If you'd rather use your mapmaking skills than edit articles on remote regions of Portugal, you may want to head over to Baden-Wuerttemberg ;)

As you can see, on the top of the article it says: "Lua error in Module:Quickbar at line 120: bad argument #2 to 'insert' (number expected, got string)." It seems to have something to do with timezone data. However, I see nothing wrong with the timezones listed in its Wikidata property. ϒpsilon (talk) 08:19, 11 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Seems like the quickbar is back now. Probably just some experimenting going on at WD. :) ϒpsilon (talk) 08:33, 11 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

As part of quite a large edit, User:Anjo-sozinho replaced the current banner showing wheat fields in Alentejo with a new one, that is currently being used as the banner for Central Portugal. Normally, such important changes to a page are discussed beforehand, or at the very least there is an explanation for the change given in the edit summary.

For now I have reinserted the old banner and caption. I really like the simple wheat field banner, and feel it sums up Portugal brilliantly. However, it would be silly to deny that the other banner has merits. What are others' thoughts? Would people rather see the banner changed* or leave it how it is?

(*We can't use the same banner on two pages, but we could always find a new banner for Central Portugal if the coast image is favoured.)

--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 00:27, 30 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

• I agree with the change. Anjo-sozinho (talk) 14:51, 30 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

You made the change, so I'm not surprised :-) --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:54, 30 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

• The current banner is a higher-quality photo and a refreshingly unusual picture for a pagebanner, whereas there are lots of pictures of coastline serving as banners. If you consider it to sum up Portugal brilliantly, that clinches things in favor of not changing. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:59, 30 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Well I am not exactly an expert on Portugal (visited twice, whereas our friend here seems to be Portuguese), which is why I'd like others' opinions. But I agree the field banner is better. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:45, 30 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Having spent loads of time in Portugal over a few decades, I know the country albeit not big in size or population, does have many different geographical features. To choose a banner that imparts the general feeling is no easy task. Having said that, the country connection with the sea is something I believe most people can relate to. Although Anjo-sozinho unilateral banner change was not approved by consensus, I can see what was intended. On the other hand the wheat field is a beautiful shot but more representative of the southern regions. From a familiarity view point, I prefer to keep the existing banner until a much better panorama comes into existence. CharlieCares (talk) 14:12, 14 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

While the current banner is refreshingly minimalistic, it has low photographic quality. I suggest that we import the banner from French Wikivoyage. I made a copy with increased contrast, as well. /Yvwv (talk) 12:07, 12 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I kind of like the new one, though it puts me more in mind of Australia or Africa, rather than Portugal (yes, even though it definitely depicts Portugal!) I still prefer the old one, if I'm honest, and don't see the low quality (maybe I need my eyes testing!). If others feel strongly about finding a banner which depicts the sea, either Yvwv's proposal, or something else, then perhaps the current wheatfield banner could replace what is currently on Alentejo - a modern housing complex. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:57, 12 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yet another banner idea, this time not a landscape. Is there anything more Portuguese than azulejos? Well, perhaps the port wine, but one should drink it, not watch =) --Alexander (talk) 22:44, 15 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

My favorite is 2a. Seems to be a good example of Portugal. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 04:29, 16 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

I support the azulejo for Portugal. Madeira has an azulejo banner, but would be better represented by the Ponta de São Lourenço banner. /Yvwv (talk) 13:12, 8 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

• Any kind of consensus here? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 02:23, 26 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

I like the idea of an azulejo banner. It's distinctive. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:38, 26 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

There seems to be some resistance to the statement that the Reconquista culminated in the expulsion of Portugal's Jews and Muslims. It did, as noted at w:Persecution of Jews and Muslims by Manuel I of Portugal. I think this is a significant enough event to merit at least a phrase in "Understand". Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:50, 11 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

The resistance is only in connection with the time frame. No one is trying to make the Portuguese seem like saints, however, over simplification is wrong. Another issue is one's perception often being based on the faulty assumption about matters still yet to be determined concerning foreign cultures and civilisations. The so called Reconquista from the Portuguese perspective, ended in the 1290's. During that period, there was no official policy concerning what to do with non Christian populations. By in large, to begin with, the need to make conquered land viable economically, superseded religious differences. At any rate, the larger percentage of conquered peoples had been either Pagan or Christian before the Arab take over. Many become Muslim solely for tax and military conscription reasons. Once the situation changed, the crypto Christians and Pagans reverted. Only during king Manuel I reign, did a policy of religious hegemony began to be officially formulated. This, some 250 years after the so called Portuguese Reconquista had been accomplished. Therefore, the argument is not if it happen but when it did happen. As one follows the history time line, reference to the "forced" expulsions and conversions is clearly mentioned. CharlieCares (talk) 02:44, 13 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

If you'd like to clarify the timeline, but all means do so. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:52, 13 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Appreciate your input, I'll do something about it in due course. CharlieCares (talk) 14:18, 14 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Recently, an edit was made concerning the independence of Portugal's former African colonial possessions. The editor, erroneously states to Madeira and Azores, as being African colonies that did not become independent... I recomend reversion of the edit since neither Madeira or Azores in April 1975 were "Portuguese African colonies". Both arquipelagos since the early 1800s, apart from being largely populated by Portuguese continental people, had full political/administrative district governing rights as in continental Portugal, while the African and Asian possessions, were and are in the vast majority populated by indeginous people's and remained "Portugal overseas colonies" until the early 1950s, when the "Estado Novo" regime changed those colonies status into "Overseas Provinces", in an attempt to divert UN attention off the colonies population demands for independence. CharlieCares (talk) 16:03, 20 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

It comes to mind and it might be useful to note, that Portugal has a generalised system of addressing consumer complaints related to service and product quality and even for being insulted for no reason. However, it's not to be lightly used for spurious or revengeful matters. According to the law, every type of establishment dealing with the public like, retailers, restaurants, taxi, buses and trains, take aways, repair shops, garages, hotels, hairdressers, bars and nightclubs, travel agents and so on, is obliged to keep a complaint register ledger (Livro de Reclamações) and to advertise it prominently somewhere for customers to be easily made aware of it. This register is made up in book form with pages in triplicate and records going back three years must be kept. This facility is only used if for example, the consumer feels being taken advantage of or given very bad service and fails to settle the matter directly with the people involved or the management. Then, one can ask for the complaints register ledger (Livro de Reclamações) and write in the complaint. If management refuses to produce the ledger, you can bring a police agent into the establishment to enforce the law. Once the ledger is made available, you'll notice the triplicate self carbon pages. All the necessary details are incorporated into the pages, so it's quite easy to follow. Write in your story and everyone concerned needs to sign it. One copy is sent to the authorities, one copy you keep and one stays in the ledger. In so far as the matter getting resolved is concerned, it may take a long time and you personally may not see an outcome, but licensing authorities do inspect ledgers periodically and if a establishment gets out of line, it may end up loosing it's licence to operate. Therefore, your contribution wouldn't have gone to waste. CharlieCares (talk) 03:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Go ahead and add the information, though it probably doesn't need the level of explanatory detail you've provided here. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I have read signs in establishments in Catalonia that seem to indicate they have a similar system (of course those signs are in Catalan only even in otherwise touristy establishments) Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:42, 3 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

For those who have studied and analized the "Estado Novo" period of Portuguese history with a completely open mind devoid of any preconceived political bias, a mixed bag of new/old policies and economical ideas in a limited consultative governance style befitting an authoritarian, corporate, conservative and anti-communist dictatorial secular state without Vatican interference, becomes apparent. Therefore, to characterise the Salazar/Caetano period, simply as "fascism", is to ignore the actual facts or try white washing and pigeon hole for the sake of either expediency or grand standing. As a matter of interest for those who don't know, António de Oliveira Salazar in his wisdom/shortcomings, actually banned the Portuguese Fascist Party aka the "Blue Shirts". Thus, in this context, the term Fascist should not be used willy nilly. CharlieCares (talk) 02:19, 2 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Re: this edit:

If Portugal suffers from dangerous drivers, per ttcf, we need to say so. However, if you don't like the phrasing, it can be tweaked as appropriate. Simply deleting it because it puts Portuguese people in a bad light, though - even if deserved - is inimical to the entire reason for a travel guide: to help travelers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:01, 6 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

I've been to Portugal, though I didn't drive when I was there. I don't recall Portuguese driving habits being particularly aggressive though. Certainly they seemed less aggressive than New York City drivers. The dog2 (talk) 16:23, 6 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

I think we have to be sceptical about this. The "foreigner drivers are maniacs" trope is, I think, rooted in xenophobia. Having driven in Sicily for two weeks last year, I have been exposed to a lot of this in conversations at home. Yes, there are some things that Italian drivers do that are dangerous, but for the most part, if is a matter of a different driving culture. By and large, Italian roads seem to be fairly safe because everyone is following the same unwritten rules. As a foreigner, I had to learn what those rules were so I could change my expectations about other drivers. I expect that visitors to Canada go through the same thing. For example, in New Zealand, speeding is rare because police will ticket you as soon as you are over the speed limit. In my province of Canada, the normal highway speed is 10-15 km over the speed limit because it is understood that police do not ticket at l9wer speeds. Driving below the speed limit can cause problems because you are not going with the flow of traffic. Maybe a kiwi driving herevwoukd write that Canaduanscare all speed demons.

If there are statistics that show higher accident rates in Portugal, let's include those. But let's not denigrate Portuguese drivers as being dangerous because one contributor, possibly long ago, expected Pirtuguese drivers to behave like drivers in her or his home country. Ground Zero (talk) 17:26, 6 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps pinging user:Roundtheworld would be an idea, since nobody contributing to this discussion so far (including me) has any first-hand experience of the subject.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 22:46, 6 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

The issue would be accident rates per km driven and per capita. There are certainly countries where drivers in general are objectively dangerous, such as at least some Middle Eastern countries (and at least formerly, Malaysia - I don't know the current situation there). If Portuguese drivers aren't dangerous, cool, then we shouldn't say so, but not because it's "almost racist" to make such a statement, whether accurate or not. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:44, 6 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Judging by road fatalities per 100,000 of population and per 100,000 vehicles, Portugal is more dangerous than Spain, France and Italy, comparable to Greece, and much safer than Serbia, Croatia, Romania, and Albania. I think this observation was personal or anecdotal, rather than statistical. Ground Zero (talk) 02:02, 7 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Also much safer than the US, although Americans probably drive a lot more. Ground Zero (talk) 02:04, 7 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @Ikan Kekek:With regard to Malaysia, it's not that dangerous. In terms of aggressiveness, I'd say it's comparable with Costa Rica or Colombia, and less so than in Indonesia, Vietnam or China (though things may have changed in China). The dog2 (talk) 05:55, 7 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

OK. I think more dangerous than Italy is significant, but what would be more helpful would be to describe the local driving style, if that can be done. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:24, 7 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Wow! I did not expect to provoke such a long discussion! The text on Portuguese drivers reminded me of the earliest British Guide Books from the second half of the 19th century which spent all their time disparaging the locals. The version as edited includes the phrase "Also, Portuguese driving can seem erratic and, frankly, scary to the uninitiated." Is that not adequate?Roundtheworld (talk) 07:57, 7 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

If it's adequate, it's adequate. I think you can see why I was unsure about the edit, but all I really want is accuracy. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:20, 7 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Some time back, I created Southern Central Portugal as a subregion of Central Portugal so that I would have somewhere to stick Tomar (and some other municipalities whose articles have not yet been created), but I don't like this made-up region. In real life, per Portuguese Wikipedia, Tomar is in:

• Região (NUTS II) → Centro — Central Portugal, but it has subregions, so I don't think we can stick directly here.
• Sub-região (NUTS III) → Médio Tejo — It's not a Wikivoyage region/subregion, but it falls fully within Central Portugal. However, most of its municipalities fall within the former province of Ribatejo, which we redirect to Lezíria do Tejo, which is a subregion of Southern Portugal and does not fully correspond to Ribatejo. A few of the municipalities fall within the former provinces of Beira Baixa and Beira Litoral.
• Distrito → Santarém — We don't use districts in our geographical hierarchy, nor should we even consider it.
• Província → Ribatejo — It's a redirect as mentioned above.

The mixture of NUTS II for first-level Wikivoyage regions and traditional provinces for second-level regions in Central Portugal and Northern Portugal leads to several gaps, since provinces don't fit neatly into NUTS. This is a less apparent problem in Northern Portugal, as we do not yet have articles in the gaps, but it is visible on the regions map. Gaps are not an issue on Lisbon Region and Algarve, which do not have subregions, nor on Alentejo, which uses NUTS III subregions, so these fit neatly within it with no gaps.

How should we resolve the gaps without resorting to fake, meaningless subregions? Should we convert Northern and Central Portugal regions to use NUTS III for subregions? (Oeste within Central Portugal already fits the bill. Some of Alentejo's subregions have only one destination article, although they do have red links for all other municipalities.) Nelson Ricardo (talk) 05:12, 6 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Whatever you recommend. I support whatever steps need to be taken to remove gaps in our region hierarchy. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:38, 26 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. I'll have to think about this further and welcome any suggestions, as I'm unsure how to proceed and any changes at this level would need consensus. As you saw (restating here for those who don't follow VFD), I am trying to get rid of a NUTS III-based region that was created despite the existence of overlapping regions. Wikivoyage:Votes for deletion#Tâmega e Sousa and Category:Tâmega e Sousa Nelson Ricardo (talk) 14:55, 26 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Nelson Ricardo, as you seem to be the current editor who is most knowledgeable about Portugal, I'm with SelfieCity in trusting you to do what makes most sense here. I think that as long as you post here what you plan to do, if there are no objections within a couple of weeks, you can go ahead and make the changes. Ground Zero (talk) 16:49, 26 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

As the thought process continues around this conundrum, I see that I was mistaken when I said, "This is a less apparent problem in Northern Portugal, as we do not yet have articles in the gaps, but it is visible on the regions map." I looked only at the first-level region rather than the subregions. I now noticed at Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro ("TMAD", let's say) that Moimenta da Beira (currently city 11) and Sernancelhe (currently city 16, but a redirect to 11, but that I might make its own article) fall into the gap, even though they're listed as TMAD. This is a fiction. They were not part of this historical province, but Beira Alta instead, which we classify as Central Portugal despite a handful of municipalities that are in Northern Portugal under the NUTS II regions that we're using for 1st-level division. Wikipedia has articles in Portuguese and English, both with maps, showing where the various boundaries arte throughout history. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 17:09, 2 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Yes, when I looked at the regions Northern Portugal seemed particularly problematic to me. As stated before I trust that you know the area and know what regions to move to make them more logical. On Wikivoyage, there’s no requirement to use official regions, although in many cases we do use them as they are normally in common usage. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:26, 2 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

We should get rid of the NUTS regions altogether, as they are primarily geared toward reporting statistics to the EU. Our second-level regions should be based on w:Provinces_of_Portugal#New_Provinces, but grouped so that we don't end up with 13 top-level regions. Although their legal/administrative status ended in 1976, they are still used as geographical reference and make good tourist regions. The Portuguese Wikipedia articles on the provinces have a trustworthy list of each one's municipalities, so creating dynamic maps will be easy (but tedious).

• Northern Portugal - slight change in borders
  • Douro Litoral - slight change in borders
  • Minho - should remain unchanged
  • Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro - slight change in borders
• Beiras - new region (currently a redirect), corresponds largely to Central Portugal, we might want to keep this name
  • Beira Alta - slight change in borders
  • Beira Baixa - slight change in borders
  • Beira Litoral - slight change in borders
• Estremadura and Ribatejo - new region
  • Estremadura - new subregion (we deleted the extra-region in March), corresponds largely but not exactly with Oeste and Lisbon Region
  • Ribatejo - new subregion (currently a redirect), corresponds largely but not exactly to Lezíria do Tejo
• Alentejo - redefine existing region
  • Alto Alentejo - redefine existing subregion
  • Baixo Alentejo - redefine existing subregion
• Algarve - should remain unchanged, has no subregions
• Madeira - should remain unchanged, has no subregions
• Azores - should remain unchanged, has subregions for each of the 9 islands; São Miguel and Terceira are set up as sub-subregions, though each currently has only one city article; São Jorge (Azores) is set up as a sub-subregion, but both municipalities are currently red links, and no category exists for it yet. Nelson Ricardo (talk)

:@Nelson Ricardo, I accept that the administrative provinces that were in force between 1936 and 1954, and that were eliminated from the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic in 1976, be defined as a criterion for choosing the regions. Thus, we would have 11 regions in mainland Portugal and 2 more in Madeira and the Azores. So far so good.
:The problem arises when you want to group these Provinces together to create new regions. What is the reason for these "super-regions"? Is it to try to correspond with NUTS II Regions?Sanjorgepinho (talk) 17:34, 5 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Sanjorgepinho, please see Wikivoyage:Avoid long lists and Wikivoyage:Geographical_hierarchy#Dividing_geographical_units. Basically, we believe that it will overwhelm our readers (travellers) to access a country page and be confronted with a list of 13 regions. Community consensus is that most lists, including lists of regions, are best manageable by readers when there are no more than 5 to 9 items on the list.

I do not intend to use NUTS II for our "super-regions" (a/k/a "first-level" regions). Several of our new first-level regions do have names that match the statistical regions, but we use them in line with historical usage and popular understanding. I believe that this serves our travellers well. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 19:16, 5 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Nelson Ricardo, I understand and agree with your justification. Thanks for the explanation. Sanjorgepinho (talk) 18:25, 6 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

I have finished setting up the new regions. I have updated dynamic maps here and on the region and subregion pages. I'll see if I can persuade a skilled contributor to produce static maps for the country and top-level region articles. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 02:30, 6 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

I would like to remove the {{regions discussion}} template, but feel that I may have a conflict of interest. Does anyone oppose the removal? --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 02:44, 6 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

My apologies to those of you who don't follow the Travellers' pub. I am happy to announce the launch of Wikivoyage:Portugal Expedition, where we can all collaborate to improve our Portugal coverage. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 03:17, 5 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Portugal#Cities has 4 cities from Northern Portugal, but none from Azores or Algarve. Of the 4, only Viana do Castelo isn't a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I propose replacing it with Angra do Heroísmo in the Azores, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 21:43, 24 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Similar in population, too. Do you have any sense of which of the two cities gets more visitors (tourists, businesspeople, visiting students, etc.)? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:46, 24 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

I'll need to dig for city-level stats (Turismo de Portugal's TravelBI system seems to be unavailable, whether temporarily or permanently). w:Tourism_in_Portugal#Statistics shows the Azores as the least popular region among foreign visitors and 2nd least popular among the Portuguese. Northern Portugal is the 3rd most popular with foreigners and most popular with nationals. (There's a citation on the stats, but with the system down, I can't verify.) Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 22:06, 24 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

I can't find relevant figures, I'll post this on Wikivoyage:Requests for comment to get more community input. --Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 23:35, 25 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Ikan Kekek, I'm not sure whether to count you as an oppose. No one else has opined on my proposal, which I did post at Wikivoyage:Requests for comment. If no one chimes in within a few days, I'll make the change. Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 19:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Given the absence of opposition, I will proceed with my proposed change. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 00:50, 7 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

Done --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 01:07, 7 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Nelson Ricardo 2500: I've created a static map draft of the regions of Portugal based upon the dynamic map currently in place at Portugal. I realize the colors are different, but otherwise, is this what you intended at Wikivoyage:Requests for maps? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:16, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

It looks great. Thank you! I'm not married to the current colors. I think yours work better. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 01:28, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

I appreciate the effort but I don't agree with the map. Working based on a map that never reflected the Portuguese territory and with artificial regions created for wikivoyage in English, is for me a mistake. Neither the greater part of the Setúbal Peninsula is in the Tagus valley nor the locations on the map reflect well the Portuguese tourist map. Sanjorgepinho (talk) 02:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

I assumed the regions have been decided. If not, we need to clarify the regions and then draw the map. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 02:17, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

The problem is not just the regions but the locations on the map. For example, it makes no sense to have Viana do Castelo, Braga and Guimarães, 3 very close locations, which are part of the Minho province, and to have other cities, very touristy, without being identified.Sanjorgepinho (talk) 02:32, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Sanjorgepinho, I do not consider these regions artificial. They were agreed in the #Regions 2021 section above. Wikivoyage's Tagus Valley region combines the 1936 provinces of Estremadura and Ribatejo. This roughly matches the medieval Estremadura province and very closely matches the current Lisboa e Vale do Tejo Comissão de Coordenação e Desenvolvimento Regional (CCDR).

Let us know what other touristy cities should be added. I believe that Angra do Heroísmo in the Azores is a good candidate, as it replaced Viana as one of the "top 9" cities per the section directly above this one. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 04:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Nelson Ricardo 2500 What you are doing is forcing regions according to your will, so it has been constantly changing. It mixes regions and NUTS with provinces from 1936, with public entities acting areas. It was important to study the evolution of these public bodies to understand the origin of their names.

What I have been asking from the beginning is that you establish a criterion for the entire territory of Portugal.

If you want to leave the Provinces and choose the areas of action of the Coordination Commissions, please do this for the whole country.

For example, the area of ​​activity of the Lisbon and Vale do Tejo Coordination Commission is subdivided into the Metropolitan Area of ​​Lisbon (NUTS III), Oeste (NUTS III), Lezíria do Tejo (NUTS III) and Médio Tejo (NUTS III) [5].

For that, it leaves out Estramadura and Ribatejo. Then it corrects all the other regions, removing the 1936 provinces and adapting the areas of action of its Regional Development Coordination Commissions.

I don't question your choice of 9 cities. What the map should reflect are these 9 cities chosen and not others as is the case. As you may notice, you changed Viana do Castelo with Angra do Heroísmo but the city of Viana do Castelo is still identified on the map and Angra do Heroísmo is not. Sanjorgepinho (talk) 11:34, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

No, I am not using CCDRs at all. I shouldn't even have brought that up. The confusion is my fault. I merely stated that our Tagus Valley region, which combines Estremadura and Ribatejo, closely (maybe even exactly?) matches the CCDR to show you that these regions are not "artificial". They are based on the 1936 provinces, which I thought you agreed to above. If you wish to redo these, please put your specific recommendation in a new section for discussion and consensus. If the community agrees to changing the regions again, someone (not me—I don't have the energy or desire to revisit all this again) will have to go through and update the affected region articles accordingly and also the cities as needed to reflect the changes. Despite my blood, I'm just a foreigner in this land, so I'll have to defer to natives to come up with the best regionalization. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 18:58, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

I like the map here, except that why is the k in km capitalised as Km? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 02:39, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

All data except regions and one city (Funchal) comes from File:Portugal regions map.svg. We can change the city labels, so if there’s any that can be added or removed, it’s an easy task. I can also check whether “Km” to “km” is an easy fix. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 10:07, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

I understand your work, the problem is that the Portugal_regions_map.svg basemap is already wrong. For example, it doesn't make sense to have Braga, Viana do Castelo and Guimarães (all from the same province) identified in this map of the regions when you should only be identified in one of these cities. On the other hand, this map does not represent the national territory. Someone did it and began to be used that way. Sanjorgepinho (talk) 11:45, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

Please relax mate. But the map is based on what Wikivoyage uses so, yeah.... SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:48, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

I assumed this area had some important tourist destinations to justify the number of cities there, but I’m also not so keen on all of them being so close together. I’ll check regarding other destinations that could be placed on the map to even the spread. We could reconsider the list of cities. However, we need to be providing alternatives to problems, not just pointing them out, if they are to be fixed. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 13:43, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

In relation to cities, we can include Fátima (the largest Portuguese religious destination), one of the cities of the Douro (the largest wine tourism destination in Portugal) which includes the Alto Douro Wine Region, a Unesco heritage. Thus, on the map, for example, I would leave Braga, removing Guimarães and Viana do Castelo and including Peso da Régua. I would also include Setúbal on the map, due to Serra da Arrábida and its beaches. Regarding the 9 cities, I would put: Lisbon, Angra do Heroísmo, Aveiro, Braga, Coimbra, Evora, Funchal and Porto and Faro. Sanjorgepinho (talk) 14:38, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

Please keep in mind that the destinations are better handled in the region articles -- we don't have to have them all in the national article. And I agree with SelfieCity that proposing improvements is a more effective way of contributing to Wikivoyage than criticizing what is there. Ground Zero (talk) 14:43, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

@SelfieCity shouldn't Angra do Heroísmo be listed on the map cause it's listed under cities Tai123.123 (talk) 15:05, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

I've made several changes to the map according to the above commentary. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 16:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, @SelfieCity. The Alto Douro Wine Region label between Évora and Beja is misplaced. It's in the right spot farther north. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 19:03, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

My bad. That was an error when I copied the text. I will fix it. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:27, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

Done --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:57, 19 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

Given that Nelson Ricardo 2500 has put a lot of work into that article and it's a star article, would it make sense to add that article to the other destinations list? (there's three free slots, and think it deserves to be on the "Portugal" page) --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:44, 15 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Nope. Cities are listed in "Cities" and can't be listed in "Other destinations." Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:08, 15 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

I've certainly seen towns being listed in the other destinations section. See Western Australia for example SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:26, 15 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Anywhere that's happened, it's incorrect and should be fixed. The only exception is if there's such a big attraction in itself that it can be pipe-linked to a section within a city article and put in Other destinations. One example is the listing for the Taj Mahal, pipe-linked to Agra#Taj Mahal in India#Other destinations. But normally, "Other" means precisely other than cities. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:49, 15 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Despite my work to make Caldas the best Portugal article, there are many others in the country with greater tourist appeal, and as Ikan said, cities don't belong under Other destinations. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 16:44, 15 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

It does, however, get a mention here under Money > Shopping. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 16:46, 15 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

What section does the following website go into?

• https://rewilding-portugal.com/

Thanks for answering. -- Apisite (talk) 11:34, 28 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Which bit of that is relevant to travellers? Are there wilderness areas to visit? Ecotourism lodges? Wildlife safaris? Can the traveller volunteer or work short-term for a rewilding project? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:57, 28 January 2023 (UTC)Reply