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The Azores

Flores| Corvo |Terceira|S. Jorge|Graciosa|Pico|Faial|S. Maria|S. Miguel

The Azores are a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,500 km from Lisbon and about 3,900 km from the east coast of North America. The westernmost island (Flores) actually lies on the North American plate and is only 1,925 km from St. John's in the Canadian province of Newfoundland. The Azores' most significant industry is tourism.

The nine major Azorean Islands and the eight small Formigas extend for more than 600 km, and lie in a northwest-southeast direction. The vast extension of the islands defines an immenseexclusive economic zone of 1.1 million km². The westernmost point of this area is 3,380 km from the North American continent. All of the islands have volcanic origins, though Santa Maria also has some reef contribution. The mountain of Pico on Pico Island, at 2,351 m in altitude, is the highest in all of Portugal. The Azores are actually the tops of some of the tallest mountains on the planet, as measured from their base at the bottom of the ocean. The archipelago forms the Autonomous Region of Azores, one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal.

Though it is commonly said that the archipelago is named after the goshawk (Açor in Portuguese), because it was supposed to be a common bird at the time of the discovery, the bird actually never existed on the islands. Some historians indicate the archaic Portuguese word "azures" (the plural of blue) because of the color of the islands when seen from afar. Most, however, insist that the name is derived from birds, pointing to a local subspecies of the buzzard (Buteo buteo), as the animal the first explorers erroneously identified as goshawks.

History

The islands were known in the fourteenth century and can be seen incompletely, for example, in the Atlas Catalan. In 1427, one of the captains sailing for Henry the Navigator rediscovered the Azores, possibly Gonçalo Velho, but this is not certain. The colonization of the then-unoccupied islands started in 1439 with people mainly from the continental provinces of Algarve and Alentejo; in the following centuries settlers from other European countries arrived, most notably from Northern France and Flanders. In 1583, Philip II of Spain as king of Portugal, sent his combined Iberian fleet to clear the French traders from the Azores, decisively hanging his prisoners-of-war from the yardarms and contributing to the "Black Legend". The Azores were the second-to-last part of the Portuguese empire to resist Philip's reign over Portugal (Macau being the last), Azores was returned to Portuguese control with the end of the Iberian Union, not by the military efforts, as these were already in Restoration War efforts in the mainland, but by the people attacking a well-fortified Castillian guarnition.

The 1820 civil war in Portugal had strong repercussions in the Azores. In 1829, in Vila da Praia, the liberals won over the absolutists, making Terceira Island the main headquarters of the new Portuguese regime and also where the Council of Regency (Conselho de Regência) of Mary II of Portugal was established.

Beginning in 1868, Portugal issued its stamps overprinted with "AÇORES" for use in the islands. Between 1892 and 1906, it also issued separate stamps for the three administrative districts of the time.

From 1836 to 1976, the archipelago was divided into three districts, quite equivalent (except in area) to those in the Portuguese mainland. The division was arbitrary, and didn’t follow the natural island groups, rather reflecting the location of each district capital on the three main cities (neither of each on the western group).

• Angra consisted of Terceira, São Jorge, and Graciosa, with the capital at Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira.
• Horta consisted of Pico, Faial, Flores, and Corvo, with the capital at Horta on Faial.
• Ponta Delgada consisted of São Miguel and Santa Maria, with the capital at Ponta Delgada on São Miguel.

During the Second World War, in 1943, Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar leased bases in the Azores to the British. This represented a change in policy. Previously the Portuguese government only allowed German U-boats and navy ships to refuel there.^[1]. This was a key turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic, allowing the Allies to provide aerial coverage in the middle of the Atlantic. This helped them to hunt U-boats and protect convoys.

In 1944, American forces constructed a small and short-lived air base on the island of Santa Maria. In 1945, a new base was founded on the island of Terceira and is currently known as Lajes Field. It was founded in an area called Lajes, a broad, flat sea terrace that had been a farm. Lajes Field is a plateau rising out of the sea on the northeast corner of the island. This air force base is a joint American and Portuguese venture. Lajes Field continues to support US and Portuguese military operations. During the Cold War, the US Navy P-3 Orion anti-submarine squadrons patrolled the North Alantic for Soviet submarines and surface spy vessels. Since its inception, Lajes Field has been used for refuelling aircraft bound for Europe, and more recently, the Middle East. The US Army operates a small fleet of military ships in the harbor of Praia da Vitória, three kilometers southeast of Lajes Field. The airfield also has a small commercial terminal handling scheduled and chartered passenger flights from other islands in the archipelago, Europe, and North America.

In 1976, the Azores became the Autonomous Region of the Azores (Região Autónoma dos Açores), one of the Autonomous regions of Portugal, and the Azorean districts were suppressed.

Municipalities

The Azores are divided into nineteen municipalities (concelhos); each municipality is further divided into parishes (freguesias). The Azores have a total of 156 parishes.

There are also five cities: Ponta Delgada and Ribeira Grande on São Miguel Island; Angra do Heroísmo and Praia da Vitória on Terceira, and Horta on Faial.

Angra

• Terceira
  • Angra do Heroísmo and Vila da Praia da Vitória
• Graciosa
  • Santa Cruz da Graciosa
• São Jorge
  • Calheta and Velas

Horta

• Pico
  • Lajes do Pico, Madalena and São Roque do Pico
• Faial
  • Horta
• Flores
  • Lajes das Flores and Santa Cruz das Flores
• Corvo
  • Corvo

Ponta Delgada

• Santa Maria
  • Vila do Porto
• São Miguel
  • Lagoa, Nordeste, Ponta Delgada, Povoação, Ribeira Grande, Vila Franca do Campo, and Furnas

Geography

Island	Area (km²)
São Miguel Island	759
Pico Island	446
Terceira Island	403
São Jorge Island	246
Faial Island	173
Flores Island	143
Santa Maria Island	97
Graciosa Island	62
Corvo Island	17

The archipelago is spread out in the area of the parallel that passes through Lisbon (39º 43' / 39º 55' N), giving it a moderate climate, with mild annual oscillation. The average annual rainfall increases from east to west and ranges from 700 to 1600 mm. The Azores high is named after the islands.

The archipelago lie in the Palearctic ecozone, forming a unique biome among the world's Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, with many endemic species of plants. The uniqueness of the islands gives them a very distinctive "look," somewhere between Ireland and Hawaii.

The nine islands have a total area of 2,355 km². Their individual areas vary between 759 km² (São Miguel) and 17 km² (Corvo). Three islands (São Miguel, Pico and Terceira) are bigger in size than Malta (composed of three different islands), São Miguel Island alone being twice as big.

The nine islands are divided into three groups:

• The Eastern Group (Grupo Oriental) of São Miguel, Santa Maria and Formigas Islets
• The Central Group (Grupo Central) of Terceira, Graciosa, São Jorge, Pico and Faial
• The Western Group (Grupo Ocidental) of Flores and Corvo.

The islands were formed during the Tertiary period, in the Alpine phase. Their volcanic cones and craters reveal the volcanic origin of most islands. Pico, a volcano that stands 2,351 meters high on the island of the same name, has the highest altitude in the Azores. The last volcano to erupt was the Capelinhos Volcano (Vulcão dos Capelinhos) in 1957, in western part of Faial island, increasing the size of that island. Santa Maria Island is the oldest Azorean island presenting several limestone and red clay extensions.

On 31 December 2002, the Azores' population was 238,767 at a density of 106 persons/km².^{[citation needed]}

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