News: Registration of Company in Portugal-Lda

Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country located in Southwestern Europe, on the Iberian Peninsula. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east. Apart from continental Portugal, the Portuguese Republic holds sovereignty over the Atlantic archipelagos of Azores and Madeira, which are autonomous regions of Portugal. The country is named after its second largest city, Porto, whose Latin name was Portus Cale.

The land within the borders of the current Portuguese Republic has been continually fought over and settled since prehistoric times. After a period of Roman rule followed byVisigothic and Suebian domination, in the 8th century most of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Moorish invaders professing Islam. During the Christian Reconquista, Portugal established itself as an independent kingdom from Galicia in 1139. In the 15th and 16th centuries, as the result of pioneering the Age of Discovery, Portugal expandedwestern influence and established the first global empire, becoming one of the world's major economic, political and military powers.

The Portuguese Empire was the longest-lived of the modern European colonial empires, spanning almost 600 years, from the capture of Ceuta in 1415 to the handover of Macau in 1999 and granting of sovereignty to East Timor in 2002. The empire spread throughout a vast number of territories that are now part of 53 different sovereign states. Portugal's international status was greatly reduced during the 19th century, especially following theIndependence of Brazil, its largest colony. After the 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established, itself being superseded by the "Estado Novo" authoritarian regime. Democracy was restored after the Portuguese Colonial War and the Carnation Revolution in 1974.

Portugal is a developed country with a very high Human Development Index, the world's 27th highest quality of life as of 2010, and the 25th in Bloomberg's Global Innovation Index. It is one of the world's most globalized and peaceful nations: a member of theEuropean Union and the United Nations, and a founding member of the Latin Union, theOrganization of Ibero-American States, OECD, NATO, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the eurozone and the Schengen Agreement.