Welcome to Portugal, the smaller sister to Spain! Enjoy landscapes from the mountainous north to the sunny beaches in the south, or one of the islands in the Açores or Madeira.

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Subdivisions

Portugal is subdivided into 18 districts, plus two autonomous regions:

• Açores/Azores Autonomous
• Aveiro
• Beja
• Braga
• Bragança
• Castelo Branco
• Coimbra
• Évora
• Faro
• Guarda
• Leiria
• Lisbon
• Madeira Autonomous
• Portalegre
• Porto
• Santarém
• Setúbal
• Viana do Castelo
• Vila Real
• Viseu

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License Plates

As a member of the EU, Portugal's license plates feature a blue band on the left side of the plate with the EU circle of stars and the country code P. Plates are white with black text: PAB 12 CD. Until March 2020, Portuguese license plates were notable for having an additional yellow band on the right side of the plate, which is very distinctive and can still be seen in coverage: PAB 12 CD#.

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Phone Codes

Phone codes in Portugal are organized by municipality, and are prefixed with a two (2):

Insular 9

(Madeira, Açores/Azores)

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Roads, Markings, and Signage

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Highways & Road Numbering Schemes

The Portuguese highway numbering system has several tiers, from cross-country motorways down to municipal roads. In descending order of throughput, they are:

• Autoestradas A
• Itinerário Principal IP
• Itinerário Complementar IC
• Estrada Nacional N/EN
• Estrada Regional R/ER
• Estrada Municipal M/EM
• Caminho Municipal CM

Autoestradas

A-routes are the highest tier of highway in Portugal, and are signposted as blue signs with white text and a number up to 44: A123. There is no relation between the number and the region or direction of the motorway.

Itinerário Principal & Itinerário Complementar

IP-routes are usually motorways, and form a different network from the A- and N-routes, resulting in some situations where a highway may be signposted as both an IP-route and an A- or N-route. There are 9 such highways, numbered from 1 to 9. IP1-IP3 are north-south highways, and IP4-IP9 are east-west routes. IC-routes can also be motorways, and form a lower class of highway compared to IP-routes. They can be numbered with up to two digits. IP-routes are signposted with white text on red signs: IP1. IC-routes are signposted with black text on a white, black-bordered background: IC12.

Estrada Nacional & Estrada Regional

These N- and R-routes form the bulk of the Portuguese highway network. N-routes form the national network, with R-routes being downgraded sections of the N-routes that bear the same number as the corresponding N-route; however, most of these sections are still signposted as N-routes, or occasionally as EN-routes. They are signposted the same way as IP- and IC-rotues, and are numbered with either one (N1) or three (N123) digits. Single-digit N-routes have no discernable pattern – some can be long-cross-country roads (like the N2) while others are smaller urban roads (like the N6 in Lisbon). However, 3-digit N-routes are well organized: The first digit can be between 1 and 3, but does not describe the region, but the second and third digits increase sequentially from north to south. N-routes can also have a numerical suffix, added on using a hyphen (-) like so: N123-4.

Estrada Municipal & Caminho Municipal

M- and CM-routes are the lowest tier of the Portuguese road network, and are numbered within their district, which means the number likely will not be useful unless the district is known. They can have up to four digits – M-routes are numbered starting from 400, while CM-routes are numbered from 1000 onwards, and they are signposted with black text on yellow signs: M456 and CM1234. They appear to loosely follow a numbering pattern, with numbers increasing from north to south and from west to east.

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Architecture

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Language

Portuguese is the primary language used in Portugal, and is linguistically closest to Spanish, another Ibero-Romance language. It is characterized by its frequent use of the letters H and Ç as compared to Spanish, as well as tilde (~) diacritics.

Script

Portuguese uses the 26 standard letters of the Latin alphabet, five diacritics, and has seven common digraphs:

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii
Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr
Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

Diacritics

Áá Éé Íí Óó Úú Àà
Ââ Êê Ôô Ãã Õõ Çç

Digraphs

ch lh nh rr ss qu gu

Sample

Todos os seres humanos nascem livres e iguais em dignidade e em direitos. Dotados de razão e de consciência, devem agir uns para com os outros em espírito de fraternidade.

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