GEOGRAPHY

Total Area: 51.67 km2

Resident Population: 1,116 inhabitants

Population Density: 21.6 km2

Urban Centres and Rural Agglomerates: Porto Covo (Parish capital - photo), Sonega, Cabeça da Cabra

Economy: Tourism, trade, farming, fishing, etc.

Morphology: to the west, the coastal plains with their escarpments and small beaches (photo); to the east, the escarpments and part of the Cercal mountain range.

Climate: Mediterranean with influences from the Atlantic Ocean

HISTORY

Like Sines, there is evidence of human settlement in Porto Covo since Pre-historical times. On Pessegueiro Island, materials were found which suggest that the Carthaginians could have used the island as a refuge. But the Romans made use of the island more intensively, first as a port and then as a place for manufacturing fish preserves (the word Pessegueiro could well derive from the Latin word for fish, pisces). At the end of the 16th Century, a large-scale project was drawn up to make an artificial port on the island. It was never followed through. Nevertheless, two fortresses were built on Pessegueiro Island towards the end of the 16th Century and the beginning of the 17th Century. In the last decade of the 18th Century, Jacinto Bandeira founded the settlement of Porto Covo on the prospect that a fishing port and other trading facilities would be built there. In the latter half of the 19th Century, iron mining was started in the Pias and the Moinho dos Paneiros (Sines) localities, and the minerals coming from Cercal were transported down to the small island port and shipped off from there. The village of Porto Covo grew slowly, always keeping up its connection with the fishing industry. In the second half of the 20th Century, the village’s tourist vocation made an impact and, today, it has become one of the most important tourism parishes in Alentejo. The Parish of Porto Covo was established in 1984. 

NATURAL HERITAGE

- Pessegueiro Island (photo)
- The Coastal Stretch
- Nature Park of the Southwest Alentejo and Vicentine Coast

BUILT-UP HERITAGE



- The Pombaline architectural design of the Marquês de Pombal Square
- The Church of Our Lady of Soledade
- Pessegueiro Fort (photo)