Europe, Past And Present - A Comprehensive Manual Of European Geography And History (1852) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PORTUGAL. Area: 36,508 square miles. Population: 3,725,000 inhabitants. The kingdom of Portugal, comprising the western coast of the Pyrenean peninsula is upon an average 106 miles in breadth, surrounded on the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the other sides by Spain. Of the above-stated area continental Portugal comprises 35.358 square miles, while the remainder is to be assigned to the Azore Isles, which, together with the former, constitute one and the same political body, and rank among the other Portuguese provinces. Thus they are not to be considered as African colonies, like Cape Verd Islands. Angola, etc.; and as they at the same time are situated very nearly opposite Lisbon, and little more than 800 miles distant from continental Portugal (while the distance between them and the next points of Africa amounts to more than 920 miles), they are very improperly ranked by most geographers as among the African Islands. Of the above-stated population, 3.500,000 live in continental Portugal, and 250,000 inhabitants on the Azore Isles. The Roman Catholic profession is the religion of the state, though all other denominations are tolerated. The archbishop of Lisbon bears the title of patriarch since the year 1717; besides him, there are 6 bishops in Portugal and its colonies (formerly there were 12 archbishops and 14 bishops), and their dioceses comprise Climate?Soil?Productions. 4,086 parishes. Even so late as the year 1821 Portugal still numbered 360 monasteries with 5,700 monks, aud 126 nunneries with 2,725 nuns. But in 1834 all cloisters were abolished. The surface of the country is in general mountainous, though not in such a prevailing manner as in Spain. The highest mountain ranges of Portugal are the Sierra de Estrdla, rising to 7,700 f...