A predominantly urban population
After the end of the Salazar dictatorship in 1974, a change in the occupation of the national territory took place. Following the rural exodus of other European countries, the population also moved to the cities. Today, more than 60% of the Portuguese population lives in cities or on the outskirts of cities, with Lisbon, the capital, and Oporto in the lead, followed by Aveiro, Braga, Chaves, Coimbra, Guimarães, Evora and Faro (taking into account the size of their agglomerations). At the turn of the century, countless infrastructures were built to attract the natives to the city. The latter moved to the cities for obvious socio-economic reasons.
Minorities and the Portuguese diaspora
The population of Portugal has remained remarkably homogeneous since the Paleolithic era, which is why it is the first unified state on the continent. Because of its geographical position, with Spain that one must cross to reach it, Portugal has not been as marked by ethno-cultural diversity as its neighbors. However, traditions sometimes differ from one region to another, and between the city and the countryside.
From 1960 to 1990, Portugal had the highest rate of emigration in Europe, as Portuguese people hoped to find better living conditions. The Portuguese diaspora is very present in France, which counts nearly 800,000 people (including mononationals and binationals). Many of them live in the Paris area but the Portuguese community is scattered all over France. Brazil, a Portuguese-speaking country, is home to approximately 60% of the Portuguese diaspora. However, among the 5% of foreigners who constitute the minority in Portugal, one person out of 3 is Brazilian (1 out of 5 in 2018). The latter have been coming since more and more since 2017 while the socio-economic situation in their country remains tense. In second place are the British because of the Brexit effect. Followed by the Cape Verdeans. After Cape Verde gained its independence, a large majority of its inhabitants relocated to Portugal. Lisbon airport is the main transit area for Cape Verdeans living in other European countries (e.g. Paris-Lisbon-Praia) wishing to return to their island country. The Chinese also have a small community in Portugal. In Lisbon, in the northwest, Martim Moniz Square is the gateway to a small Chinatown. The best Chinese restaurants are located there. A few hundred gypsies live in the Algarve region. This group earns its living mostly by selling handicrafts, sometimes by begging, although the government tries to integrate them.
Portugal's voluntary migration policy
In 2018, Portugal was among the first European countries to offer to take in refugees from the Lifeline humanitarian boat belonging to the German NGO Mission Lifeline. Going against the grain of other European countries seeking to restrict the entry of migrants, Portugal is banking on immigration to stem its demographic decline. Since 1993, the country has been welcoming immigrants (mostly African refugees seeking asylum).
During the economic crisis in 2011, Portugal found itself with a negative net migration of 24,331 inhabitants. In 2016, this balance fell to 8,348.
In May 2018, Prime Minister António Costa declared at his Socialist Party's congress: "We need more immigration and we do not tolerate any xenophobic discourse". Following this, the government embarked on a voluntary migration policy, first of all taking measures to be more attractive: visa applications facilitated for students and start-ups wishing to establish themselves on Portuguese territory.
A previous refugee reception plan launched between 2015 and 2017 granted asylum to 1,552 refugees. Only half of them went to other countries such as Germany or the UK.
A study by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation estimated in 2017 that to maintain the general and active population level, 75,000 new people would be needed per year. The Manuel dos Santos Foundation aims to study Portuguese society through studies it publishes, and to stimulate public debate on societal issues it considers important.
In 2018 immigration finally increased. 480,300 people received residence permits, +13.9% on 2017. Of these, 93,154 were new residents. In 2022, there were 757,252 foreigners in Portugal, figures that have been rising steadily for 7 years. That's 8% more than in 2021. On the contrary, despite pandemics, crisis and war, the increase in the number of foreigners is accelerating.
The two official languages of Portugal
Surprisingly, it was not until 2001 that Portuguese was recognized as the country's official language when it was finally mentioned in the Portuguese Constitution, in Article 11: "Portuguese is the official language." It is a Romance language, like French, derived from Latin, born in the 3rd century BC when the Romans invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Portuguese is the4th most influential European language in the world after English, Spanish and French. About 200 million Portuguese speakers are spread across the globe, including former colonized countries, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique and a few places in Asia such as Macau. The dialect is of course a little different in each of these countries: Brazilians use the polite você when the Portuguese do not. They will address you with "o senhor" or "a senhora". In Cape Verde, the Creole language is used in Portuguese.
In 1996, the Portuguese-speaking countries (Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Sao Tome and Principe, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau) decided to join together to create the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries in order to promote the common language and culture they share. Their work focuses on education.
Portugal is not as monolingual as one might think. Apart from Portuguese, another official language is spoken by about 10,000 people in an area of 500 km². Its name is Mirandese, an Asturian-Leonese dialect from the Tras-os-montes region. This language was the language of the kingdom of Leon, written until the fourteenth century alongside Galician-Portuguese in official documents. Nevertheless, it has often been judged as a dialect of poor peasants. Unfortunately, Mirandese is less and less spoken due to the lack of transmission between generations. The Miranda Language Institute, founded in 2003, aims to promote and normalize this language, which you will see on the signs indicating the names of towns in the Miranda do Douro region.
