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Portugal ORIGINS OF PORTUGAL
The Iberian Peninsula is a geographic unit that
contains a
number of distinct regions based on climate and
geomorphology,
such as Andalusia, Castile, Galicia, and Lusitania.
Lusitania,
which now encompasses the modern nation-state of Portugal,
is
generally set off from the other regions of the peninsula
by
areas of higher elevation that run parallel to the
Atlantic
coast, greater rainfall, and a more moderate climate. It
was this
regional distinctiveness, as well as the internal
geography of
Lusitania--largely open to the south but hemmed in by
mountains
on the east and the Atlantic Ocean on the west--that gave
rise to
a culturally and socially distinct people, the Portuguese,
and
later to an independent nation-state, Portugal.
Data as of January 1993
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