title: Marital rape

text: While rape by a stranger is highly traumatic, it is typically a one-time event and is clearly understood as rape. In the case of rape by a spouse or long term sexual partner, the history of the relationship affects the victim's reactions. There is research showing that marital rape can be more emotionally and physically damaging than rape by a stranger. Marital rape may occur as part of an abusive relationship. Trauma from the rape adds to the effect of other abusive acts or abusive and demeaning talk. Furthermore, marital rape is rarely a one-time event, but a repeated if not frequent occurrence. Whether it takes place once or is part of an established pattern of domestic violence, trauma from rape has serious long term consequences for victims regardless of whether the assault is prosecuted or not.


title: Marital rape

text: Unlike other forms of rape, where the victim can remove themselves from the company of the rapist and never interact with them again, in the case of marital rape the victim often has no choice but to continue living with their spouse: in many parts of the world divorce is very difficult to obtain and is also highly stigmatized. The researchers Finkelhor and Yllö remarked in their 1985 metropolitan Boston area study that:


title: Marital rape

text: The historical (and present day in jurisdictions where it still applies) immunity of husbands to have sexual relations with their wives without consent was not the only marital immunity in regard to abuse; immunity from the use of violence was (and still is in some countries) common—in the form of a husband's right to use "moderate chastisement" against a 'disobedient' wife. In the US, many states, especially Southern ones, maintained this immunity until the mid-19th century. For instance, in 1824, in "Calvin Bradley v. the State", the Mississippi Supreme Court uphold this right of the husband; ruling as follows:


title: Marital rape

text: Although by the late 19th century courts were unanimously agreeing that husbands no longer had the right to inflict "chastisement" on their wives, the public policy was set at ignoring incidents deemed not 'serious enough' for legal intervention. In 1874, the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled:


title: Marital rape

text: Today, husbands continue to be immune from prosecution in case of certain forms of physical abuse against their wives in some countries. For instance, in Iraq husbands have a legal right to "punish" their wives. The criminal code states that there is no crime if an act is committed while exercising a legal right. Examples of legal rights include: "The punishment of a wife by her husband, the disciplining by parents and teachers of children under their authority within certain limits prescribed by law or by custom". In 2010, the United Arab Emirates's Supreme Court ruled that a man has the right to physically discipline his wife and children as long as he does not leave physical marks.


title: Marital rape

text: Although most research is focused on wives as victims of marital rape, husbands experience marital rape as well. Little research exists focusing on the specific situation of non-consensual wife-to-husband sexual relations, but evidence suggests that 13%-16% of men are victims of assault by marital or cohabitating partners in their lifetime (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000). Research conducted by Morse (1995), Straus (1977-1978), and Straus and Gelles (1985) suggest that men and women have nearly the same annual rates of victimization of violence by a marital or cohabitating partner (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000). One study that looked at lifetime experiences of marital and cohabitating partner violence found nearly equal rates of victimization among men and women (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000). However, these statistics convey the larger topic of partner violence and do not reflect rates of marital rape.


title: Marital rape

text: Legally, governments have direct impact on the occurrence of marital rape. The state "…engages in the definition, monitoring, and sanctioning of appropriate behavior" (Torres, 2016). This can play out in criminalizing or not criminalizing marital rape and therefore deeming what is appropriate. Catharine MacKinnon argues that rape laws in male dominated societies exist to regulate access to women from a male perspective, not to protect women's right to freely decide whether to engage in sexual intercourse or not. Whatever the reason behind such laws, even when state laws have criminalized marital rape, state institutions perpetuate it. For example, although marital rape has been criminalized throughout the United States, the original laws of the 1980s and 1990s treated marital rape differently from non-marital rape, and in some states this continues to be the case even today (see Marital rape (United States law)). As these laws exemplify, marital rape is seen as somehow less reprehensible than rape outside of marriage (Bergen, 2016). Even when marital rape is prosecuted successfully, courts often pass shorter sentences - even if the law itself does not stipulate this - based on the view that sexual violation is less serious if it occurs within marriage. Following this same understanding, British courts often pass lower sentences to marital rape than to other cases of rape because it is believed that it causes less harm to the victim (Mandal, 2014).


title: Marital rape

text: Police departments are another state institution that treats domestic violence differently than other forms of violence. Police often label domestic abuse calls as low priority, respond slower, and focus on what provoked the abuse rather than the violent actions of the perpetrator (Schelong, 1994). Also, they often act as mediators in the situation because they may feel that domestic violence is a family matter and therefore not their business (Schelong, 1994).


title: Marital rape

text: While government institutional influences are vast, marital rape is often sustained by cultural ideologies. According to Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, the issue of sexual violence, including within marriage, has not been a political spectrum issue - that is a left wing "vs". right wing issue - but a general ubiquitous part of the culture, "The Left and the Right have consistently had different positions on rape; but neither has acknowledged rape from the point of view of the women who experienced it.


title: Marital rape

text: For many cultures, ideas of marital rape seem often foreign imposed and contradict the belief that such matters should be dealt with privately rather than by the government (Smith, 2016). In other instances, notably in the country of India, members of the government have spoken publicly that marital rape cannot be recognized in their culture. The Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, stated in April 2015, "The concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context due to various factors, including levels of education, illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, [and] the mindset of the society to treat the marriage as sacrament" (Torres, 2016). For many other countries, the concept of marital rape is itself an oxymoron (Smith, 2016). Women in these cultures largely "…share the cultural logic that marital rape is a contradiction in terms…" while men simultaneously "…see women's sexual consent in marriage as taken for granted…" and therefore "…reject the very concept of marital rape" (Smith, 2016).


title: Marital rape

text: The act of imposing sexual intercourse against the will of the wife is often not identified as morally wrong, and so it is difficult to attempt to stop the practice, "Often, men who coerce a spouse into a sexual act believe their actions are legitimate because they are married to the woman." (WHO, pp. 149). This idea that sexual intercourse in marriage is 'legitimate' and so it cannot be illegal even when forced, is in some parts of the world fueled by the custom of bride price: its paying is seen as earning the man the right to sexual and reproductive control of his wife. UN Women recommended the abolition of giving bride price, and stated that: "Legislation should [...] State that a perpetrator of domestic violence, including marital rape, cannot use the fact that he paid bride price as a defense to a domestic violence charge. (pp. 25) "


title: Marital rape

text: Young women from various settings in South Asia explained in surveys that even if they felt discomfort and didn't want to have sex, they accepted their husbands' wishes and submitted, fearing that otherwise they would be beaten. In many developing countries it is believed—by both men and women—that a husband is entitled to sex any time he demands it, and that if his wife refuses him, he has the right to use force. These women, most of them either illiterate or very poorly educated, are married at very young ages (in Bangladesh, for example, according to statistics from 2005, 45% of women then aged between 25 and 29 had been married by the age of 15), and depend on their husbands for their entire life. This situation leaves women with very little sexual autonomy. The notion that women are sexually autonomous and therefore have the ability to give or retract consent is not universally understood. Gabriella Torres writes, "The degree to which women and men view themselves as unique social beings with a full ability to make choices and suffer consequences varies by culture" (Torres, 2016). As a result, in cultures where women are not considered autonomous, they are not in a position to refuse sex: they have to choose between unwanted sex and being subjected to violence; or between unwanted sex and being abandoned by their husbands and ending up living in abject poverty.


title: Marital rape

text: According to Sheila Jeffreys, in Western countries, "sexual liberation" ideologies have aggravated the problem of male sexual entitlement, leading to women submitting to unwanted sex not only due to physical force or illegal threat, but due to societal pressure: "The force which has operated on them [women] all their lives and continues to operate on them within marriages and relationships remains largely invisible. [...] Such forces include the massive industry of sexology, sex therapy, sex advice literature, all of which make women feel guilty and inadequate for any unwillingness to fulfill a man's sexual desires."


title: Marital rape

text: The prohibition of rape serves other purposes, such as protection of the rights of male relatives or husband, enforcing of religious laws against sex outside of marriage, or preservation of a woman's respect and reputation in society. Under such ideologies it is difficult to accept the concept of marital rape. Richard A. Posner writes that, "Traditionally, rape was the offense of depriving a father or husband of a valuable asset — his wife's chastity or his daughter's virginity". In many countries of the world, including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, the severity of the legal punishment for rape depends on whether the victim was a virgin. Rhonda Copleon writes that, "Where rape is treated as a crime against honor, the honor of women is called into question and virginity or chastity is often a precondition."


title: Marital rape

text: In many cultures, marriages are still arranged for the purpose of procreation, property, and consolidation of extended family relations, often including a bride price or a dowry. In such situations, marriages are pre-arranged as an affair between families and clans. In some cultures, refusal of an arranged marriage is often a cause of an honor killing, because the family which has prearranged the marriage risks disgrace if the marriage does not proceed. Although laws that prohibiting dowries exist in many countries, men continue to demand a dowry in exchange for marriage, especially in rural areas where law enforcement is weak. In Bangladesh, dowry demand at marriage is linked to increased sexual violence. A woman attempting to obtain a divorce or separation without the consent of the husband/extended family can also be a trigger for honor killings. In cultures where marriages are arranged and goods are often exchanged between families, a woman's desire to seek a divorce is often viewed as an insult to the men who negotiated the deal.


title: Marital rape

text: However, the fact that people in developing countries are increasingly selecting marriage partners by whether they are in love – a much more Western world view – does not necessarily improve the situation. These types of marriages, especially in southeastern Nigeria, are putting women in more difficult positions: if one chooses to marry based on love against their family's wishes, admitting violence in the relationship is a disgrace because it means admitting that one made the wrong judgement (Smith, 2016).


title: Marital rape

text: Most of the Western World has been strongly influenced by Judeo-Christian Bible. The paradisaical narrative of man and woman in Genesis establishes a foundation of marriage:


title: Marital rape

text: This doctrine is repeated in the Gospel by Jesus, but with the added conclusion “so then they are no longer two, but one flesh". The same doctrine is continued in the Epistles in the writings of the Apostle Paul.


title: Marital rape

text: It is further explicated by the Apostle Paul, who asserts that neither spouse should deny their partner sex:


title: Marital rape

text: On the standing of each party to determine how this biblical principle—denial of conjugal relations—was to be effected was codified as an ecclesiastical canon in 280 A.D. by St. Dionysian of Alexandria: "Persons who are self-sufficient and married ought to be judges of themselves." The canon was given ecumenical application by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 691 A.D. Ecclesiastical canons continued to adjudicate marital issues well into the modern era until all but entirely superseded by the civil courts.


title: Marital rape

text: The Christian religion teaches that pre-marital sex is fornication, and sexual relations by a married person with someone other than their spouse is adultery, both of which are sins, while sex within marriage is a duty. This concept of 'conjugal sexual rights' has the purpose to prevent sin (in the form of adultery and temptation) as well as to enable procreation.


title: Marital rape

text: The above is interpreted by some religious figures as to render marital rape an impossibility. However, not all religious figures hold this view.


title: Marital rape

text: Further, Pentecostal Christianity prescribes gender expectations for married individuals that "…reestablish a patriarchal bargain…" in which "…women acquiesce to men's authority in return for certain kinds of support" (Smith, 2016). Husbands are expected to provide for the family, and in return, wives are to submit to their husband's authority (Smith, 2016). Ultimately, this "…strengthens some of the gender dynamics that make intimate partner violence possible in the first place" (Smith, 2016).


title: Marital rape

text: By contrast, Pope Paul VI in his 1968 encyclical letter "Humanae vitae" wrote that "Men rightly observe that a conjugal act imposed on one's partner without regard to his or her condition or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and therefore offends the moral order in its particular application to the intimate relationship of husband and wife." This teaching, which has been reaffirmed more recently by Pope Francis, and has been interpreted by Bertrand de Margerie to condemn "intra-marital rape", and the use of force in marriage more generally.


title: Marital rape

text: Another sustaining factor is the obligatory roles placed on wives and what they come to understand as their "duty". For example, "Vietnamese women are expected to sacrifice for their families, especially for their children, which includes, for some, acceding to husbands’ sexual demands". Their "duty" is to maintain family harmony and happiness. In Guatemala, violence within marriage is so normalized that wives come to believe that this is ‘the way things are’ and it is simply their role as a wife to endure the violence. This "…normalization of violence…rests on a continuum of coercive power that makes possible the mistreatment of women not only in their homes but also in the community, neighborhood, and society at large". Further, because many of these women believe giving sex is their duty, they do not characterize their experience as marital rape. However, "…women who have experienced forced sex in marriage understand this experience as an abuse or violation", they just may not characterize it as marital rape. Violence is so entrenched in many cultures it simply becomes a way of life, and wives are left to believe they must learn to endure it.


title: Marital rape

text: On the other hand, husbands are influenced by the expectations of their masculinity. In Africa, these expectations include being a husband, father, and head of the household which requires men to provide food, shelter and protection. Along with this "…obligation of being the provider comes the privilege and authority of patriarchy". As a result, it is often the man's perception that his wife has challenged his authority that leads to the violence.


title: Marital rape

text: In the United States, masculinity is understood as a fixed entity that exists despite the changes of everyday life. It is understood as being in comparison to femininity, and more specifically, in opposition to femininity: Masculinity is to superiority as femininity is to subservience. Therefore, masculinity is correlated with aggression in such a way that scholars argue violence is a way for men to show their masculine identity. Another expectation of masculinity is that men are not to show their emotion. Instead, as Robert Connell argues, the "masculine prototype" is a strong and stoic man who appears to remain in control of the situation and his emotions. This sense of control in Western masculinity has direct implications for domestic violence. Scholars argue that some men use violence to regain this sense of control when it is lost.


title: Marital rape

text: However, not all men who subscribe to masculinity expectations are violent. In fact, most men, in general, are not violent. For those who are violent, ideals of masculinity seem to play some causal role in their violence. Research shows that "violence is more likely among men who experience a disconnection between their personal circumstances and their emotions". Evidently, there seems to be some connection between the masculine expectation of suppressing or disconnecting from one's emotions, and one's tendency to be violent.


title: Marital rape

text: Although marital rape is not always defined as such in different cultures, there is a universal understanding of the violation that comes with rape. Yllö & Torres (2016) argue that "…marital rape is regularly constituted across cultures as a locally recognized social violation—one that is understood to impede women in those particular cultural contexts from aspiring to a good human life." An aspect of this violation is the notion that the victim has not given their consent, however, historically and presently, consent is not always connected to marital sex. (Yllö &Torres, 2016). In the United States, a woman's personhood, and therefore her consent, only began with the suffragist movement that sought women's access to equal citizenship (Yllö & Torres, 2016). Globally, many cultures do not require a woman's consent in marriage because procreation is at the root of such an alliance (Yllö & Torres, 2016). Further, some women are forced into marriage where her consent is not considered or required (Yllö & Torres, 2016). Despite this cultural variance, "women across many cultures do experience the violation of rape in marriage—even if the way that such violations are experienced and understood differs from culture to culture" (Yllö & Torres, 2016).


title: Marital rape

text: The criminalization of marital rape does not necessarily mean that these laws are enforced. A lack of public awareness, as well as reluctance or outright refusal of authorities to prosecute is common globally. For instance, in Ireland, where marital rape was made illegal in 1990, by 2016 there had been only two persons convicted of marital rape. Additionally, gender norms that place wives in subservient positions to their husbands, make it more difficult for women to recognize spousal rape or feel confident that it will be addressed by law enforcement.


title: Marital rape

text: There are, and have been, both contemporary and historic problems with prosecuting the perpetrators of spousal rape. One author concluded that chief amongst them has been the reluctance of the various legal systems to recognize it as a crime at all. For example, in the United Kingdom, rape by one's spouse was recognized by a 1991 House of Lords decision known simply as "R v R (1991 All ER 481)".


title: Marital rape

text: Another problem results from prevailing social norms that exist. Thus, if the norms within a society do not see spousal rape as worthy violative of social norms, marital rape laws are unlikely to produce successful prosecutions. For example, in Mali, it is considered unthinkable for a woman to refuse her husband's sexual demands; far from being seen as an act of abuse of a wife, marital rape is seen as an incident provoked by the wife who refused to perform her duty: for instance one survey found that 74% of women in Mali said that a husband is justified to beat his wife if she refuses to have sex with him.


title: Marital rape

text: Other problems arise from the fact that, in some countries where marital rape is illegal, many people are not aware of the existing laws. In some parts of the world marital rape laws are new and rarely enacted, therefore, some people are not aware of their existence. Alternatively, traditional norms concerning marriage may be deeply rooted in the conscience of the population. Substantial segments of the population may therefore not conceptualize that in any modern views of sexuality, it is wroth to force a spouse to have sex is wrong, much less illegal. For instance, a report by Amnesty International showed that although marital rape is illegal in Hungary, in a public opinion poll of nearly 1,200 people in 2006, a total of 62% did not know


title: Marital rape

text: that marital rape was a punishable crime: over 41% of men and nearly 56% of women thought it was not punishable as a crime in Hungarian law, and nearly 12% did not know. In Hong Kong, in 2003, 16 months after the criminalization of marital rape, a survey showed that 40% of women did not know it was illegal. A 2010 study in South Africa, (where marital rape was made illegal in 1993), showed that only 55% of respondents agreed with the affirmation "I think it is possible for a woman to be raped by her husband".


title: Marital rape

text: Although in recent years some countries in Africa have enacted laws against marital rape, in most parts of the continent forced marital sex is not a criminal offense. A 2003 report by Human Rights Watch stated that: "With few exceptions across Africa, marital rape is not recognized as a crime, and domestic violence is seen as a right of married men." The acceptability of domestic violence in most African countries is very high: surveys showed that the percentage of women aged 15–49 who think that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances is, for example, 87% in Mali, 86% in Guinea, 80% in Central African Republic, 79% in South Sudan. Although more countries in Africa are now enacting laws against domestic violence, social norms make it difficult to enforce these laws; and many women are not aware of their rights: for instance in Ethiopia in a survey only 49% of women knew that wife-beating is illegal (it was made illegal under the 2004 Criminal Code). The lack of legal and social recognition of marital rape in Africa has been cited as making the fight against HIV harder.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve (, , ; from ) is the southernmost NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities ("concelhos" or "municípios" in Portuguese).


title: Algarve

text: The region has its administrative centre in the city of Faro, where both the region's international airport (IATA: FAO) and public university, the University of Algarve, are located. The region coincides with Faro District and is subdivided into two zones, one to the West (Barlavento) and another to the East (Sotavento). Tourism and related activities are extensive and make up the bulk of the Algarve's summer economy. Production of food, which includes fish and other seafood, as well as different types of fruit and vegetables, such as oranges, figs, plums, carob pods, almonds, avocados, tomatoes, cauliflowers, strawberries, and raspberries, are also economically important in the region.


title: Algarve

text: Although Lisbon surpasses the Algarve in terms of tourism revenue, the Algarve is still, overall, considered to be the biggest and most important Portuguese tourist region, having received an estimated total of 7.1 million tourists in 2017. Its population triples in the peak holiday season due to seasonal residents. Due to the high standards of quality of life, mainly regarding safety and access to public health services, as well as due to cultural factors and considerably good weather conditions, the Algarve is becoming increasingly sought after, mostly by central and northern Europeans, as a permanent place to settle. Several studies and reports have concluded that the Algarve is among the world's best places to retire.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve is the fourth most developed Portuguese region – in 2019, it was placed fourth out of seven regions with a human development index (HDI) of 0.847 (Portugal's HDI average was 0.864 in 2019). With a GDP per capita at 85.2% of the European Union average, it has the second highest purchasing power in the country, standing only behind Lisbon Metropolitan Area.


title: Algarve

text: Human presence in southern Portugal dates back to the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. The presence of megalithic stones in the area of Vila do Bispo, Lagos, Alcoutim and elsewhere in the region attests to this presence.


title: Algarve

text: At around the year 1000 BC, the Phoenicians founded the city of Cádiz, and, subsequently, coastal ports along the Algarve coast. Olissipo (Lisbon) is believed to be of Phoenician origin. By the time of the Carthaginians, Portus Hannibalis – located in what is today either the city of Portimão or the town of Alvor in the Algarve – is named after Hannibal Barca.


title: Algarve

text: The Cynetes, as they were known in Greek, Conii, in Latin, were established by the sixth century BC in the region of the Algarve (called Cyneticum). Their ethnic and linguistic origins remain widely disputed, although, due to geographical proximity, it is possible that they were related both to Tartessos and the Celtici, seeing that Conii, the likely designation they used to describe themselves, is derived of the Proto-Celtic kwon ('dog'). These Indo-European tribes, Celtic or pre-Celtic, created a settlement in Lacóbriga (today's Lagos) in the year 1899 BC.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve region came under Roman control after Fabius Maximus Servilianus defeated the Lusitanians and the Turduli in the context of the Lusitanian War, as was the case of much of the Iberian Peninsula, which was absorbed into the Roman Republic in the second century BC. Cyneticum (in reference to the Cynetes who inhabited the region), as it was then called, became integrated into Hispania Ulterior and into Lusitania afterwards, being under Roman influence for around 600 years (from 200 BC till 410 AD), having thus adopted Latin as the official language, as well as Roman cultural, political, architectonic, religious and economic tenets.


title: Algarve

text: Seeing that during this time traveling through the land was dangerous, its geography meant that Cyneticum was of crucial importance as a passageway between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, connecting countless Roman ports to several provinces, mainly in other parts of Hispania, Gaul and Britannia. This meant that the region experienced a great level of prosperity accrued through an expansion of its trading and commercial capabilities, mainly from the production and commercialization of olive oil and garum, products very much sought after throughout the Roman Empire.


title: Algarve

text: As Christianity rose in popularity, becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine the Great, Cyneticum, following the same tendency of the rest of the Roman provinces, made the transition from a polytheistic society into a monotheistic one. The region made a gradual changeover into Christianity, as Pagan and Animistic religions became obsolete under this new cultural influence. Roman Emperor Theodosius I, himself a native of the Iberian Peninsula, would come to prohibit Paganism in 381. The Roman Temple of Milreu, originally dedicated to Venus, transformed later on into a Paleochristian temple, is an example of the religious changes that took place in this period.


title: Algarve

text: Many Roman ruins, both in the form of temples, countryside villas (of which more than 30 were found in the Algarve), public baths, bridges, salting and fish-processing facilities and mosaics are widespread all over the region, notably in Vila do Bispo, Lagos, Portimão, Quarteira, Faro, Olhão, Tavira and in other areas, illustrating the strong contributions that Roman culture as a whole made to the Algarve.


title: Algarve

text: After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Visigoths, a Germanic tribe originally from Scandinavia but who had spread into Eastern Europe, occupied the Iberian Peninsula around the year 500. With the death of Amalaric in 531, the original dynastic shape of the Visigoths came to an end, and out of the fusion of the Roman and Germanic components a new Iberian identity came into being. The Visigothic Kingdom was thus founded in 542, with Toledo as its capital. Practicing Arianism at first, a large portion of the Visigoths eventually adopted Catholicism to secure their position in the region. In 552, the Algarve was conquered by the Byzantine Empire and, in 571, Liuvigild managed to secure the region for the Visigothic Kingdom once again, which lasted until the year 711 (which was the starting date of the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom), and comprised most of the Iberian Peninsula and parts of modern France.


title: Algarve

text: When the Moors conquered Lagos in 716, it was renamed Zawaia. Faro, which the Christian residents had called Santa Maria, was renamed Faraon, which means "settlement of the knights". Due to the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the region was called Gharb Al-Andalus: "Gharb" means "the west", while "al-Andalus" is the Arabic name for the Iberian Peninsula. As the westernmost region to be conquered by the Moors, the coveted lands of the Algarve, in this corner of Europe, became for a while the end goal of the Muslim Empire's expansionist policy. With the advent of Moorish rule in the eighth century, Faro, called Ossonoba by then, retained its status as the most important town in the southwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula. In the 9th century, after a revolt led by Yahia Ben Bakr who was succeeded in office by his son, Bakr Ben Yahia, it became the capital of a short-lived autonomous princedom and was fortified with a ring of defensive walls. At this time, in the 10th century, the name Santa Maria began to be used instead of Ossonoba. By the 11th century, the town was known as "Santa Maria Ibn Harun". During the Moorish era (9-12th century), Silves was a major stronghold, and the town prospered greatly as the capital of the region. In the mid-13th century, during the Reconquista, the Kingdom of Portugal took over the region in a series of successful military campaigns against the Moors. "Al-Gharb" became the Kingdom of Algarve, and the non-assimilated Muslim Moors who didn't flee the region would be expelled in 1496 not only in the Algarve but in all of Portugal. As the southernmost region to be conquered by the Portuguese, the coveted territory had become for a while the end goal of the Kingdom of Portugal's expansionist policy known as Reconquista and by itself one of the reasons behind the foundation of Portugal. There were subsequent Moorish attempts to recapture the region, without success.


title: Algarve

text: King Afonso III of Portugal started calling himself King of Portugal and the Algarve. The most outstanding fact of his reign was indeed the definitive conquest of the Algarve. Silves was taken from its last Muslim ruler Ibn Afan by Paio Peres Correia, Grand-Master of the Order of Santiago in 1242 and Tavira was also taken in the same year after Alentejo and most of the coast of the Algarve (then part of a historical region called Gharb al-Andalus by the Muslims of Iberian Peninsula) had already fallen in 1238. In March 1249 the city of Faro was conquered. From this date, Afonso III became the first Portuguese king to use the title King of Portugal and the Algarve. The friars of Sant'Iago and Calatrava played a decisive role, and were entrusted with the task of concluding the conquest. The conquest of the Algarve led, however, to serious disagreements with the Kingdom of Castile. Peace was initially achieved with the marriage of King Afonso III to Beatrice of Castile, illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso X of Castile (after the pope had annulled the marriage to Matilda II because she was sterile), but the problem was only definitively solved by the Treaty of Badajoz, of 16 February 1267. By this treaty it was defined that the Guadiana river, from the confluence of the Caia until the mouth, would be the Portugal-Castile border.


title: Algarve

text: After 1471, with the conquest of several territories in the Maghreb – the area considered an extension of the Algarve – Afonso V of Portugal began fashioning himself "King of Portugal and the Algarves", referring to the European and African possessions (Algarves is the plural word of Algarve and means the Algarve plus all the overseas territories that Portugal would conquer abroad further south). The over five centuries-long Moorish rule over the Algarve (and Alentejo), left their mark and added to a unique blend of architectonic, gastronomical and artistic features like the traditional Algarve corridinho, a folk dance found in this southernmost region of Portugal. In the 15th century, Prince Henry the Navigator based himself near Lagos and conducted various maritime expeditions which established the colonies that comprised the Portuguese Empire. Also from Lagos, Gil Eanes set sail in 1434 to become the first seafarer to round Cape Bojador in West Africa. The voyages of discovery brought Lagos fame and fortune. Trade flourished and Lagos became the capital of the historical province of Algarve in 1577 and remained so until the fabled 1755 Lisbon earthquake.


title: Algarve

text: After the destructive effects of an earlier major earthquake in 1722, the 1755 earthquake damaged many areas in the Algarve and an accompanying tsunami destroyed or damaged coastal fortresses, while coastal towns and villages were heavily damaged except Faro, which was protected by the sandy banks of Ria Formosa lagoon. In Lagos, the waves reached the top of the city walls. For many Portuguese coastal regions, including the Algarve, the destructive effects of the tsunami were more disastrous than those of the earthquake itself.


title: Algarve

text: Prior to the independence of Brazil, "United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves" (1815–1822) was an official designation for Portugal which also alluded to the Algarve. After the independence of Brazil in 1822, Portuguese monarchs continued to use the title of "King of Portugal and the Algarves" until the proclamation of the First Portuguese Republic in 1910.


title: Algarve

text: In 1807, while Jean-Andoche Junot led the first Napoleonic invasion in the north of Portugal, the Algarve was occupied by Spanish troops under Manuel Godoy. Beginning in 1808, and after subsequent battles in various towns and villages, the region was the first to drive out the Spanish occupiers. During the Portuguese Civil War (1828–1834), several battles took place in the region, especially the battle of Cape St. Vicente and the battle of Sant’Ana, between liberals and Miguelites (antiliberal absolutists). Remexido was the guerrilla Algarvian leader who stood with the Miguelite absolutists for years, until he was executed in Faro in 1838. As the first canned fish undertaking in the country, the Vila Real de Santo António plant of the company Conservas Ramirez (founded in 1853) became the cradle of the sector in Portugal. Vila Real de Santo António and other places in coastal Algarve thrived on the growth of the fishing industry, which included the processing of species of tuna and sardine.


title: Algarve

text: Cork as a material used by people is a very old product. Throughout times, Portugal became the world's largest producer of cork, with the Algarve and some areas of the neighboring Portuguese region of Alentejo producing world-renowned high-quality cork (50% of the world's cork production comes from Portugal, and cork is one of the country's main exports in modern times, but large-scale use of the material by the Portuguese goes back to the 14th century, when Portuguese explorers used cork in the construction of their ships because one of the properties of cork is that it does not rot). At one time, between the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, São Brás de Alportel, in Sotavento Algarvio, was the center of cork production in the Algarve, with 80 factories in operation, but gradually the industry moved to the center and northern regions of Portugal, and only a few cork factories remained in São Brás de Alportel municipality. Starting in the late 19th century, Silves Municipality, in Barlavento Algarvio, used to be another area with a large production of the valuable cork and that industry would prosper until the 1930s (by 2010, the cork industry had disappeared in the area but Silves had a museum showing how cork was harvested and processed in the old days when it was a major center of that industry, a museum opened in 1999 that in 2001 won the prestigious award for Best Museum of Industry in Europe). The establishment of the First Portuguese Republic in 1910 marked the end of the almost nominal Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarve.


title: Algarve

text: By the 1950s, as air traveling became more accessible, the Mediterranean Basin increasingly developed into a hot-spot for international tourism. Regions such as the Algarve benefited economically from this trend.


title: Algarve

text: In the Algarve, from 1962 to 1966 and beyond, the mutation of tourism is visible in the new tourist accommodation developments. Hotels play a secondary role, in favor of apartment buildings, extended villas (some with golf course, many with swimming pool) and village complexes. After years of planning and construction work in progress, the Faro International Airport was inaugurated on 11 July 1965, by the President of the Republic Américo Tomás. The access road, between the national road EN125 and the newly built airport, was also opened to the public at the same time. However, tourism services were unprepared for this rapid change. The formation of an accommodation supply outside the framework of tourism legislation and the incapacity of public regulation of the tourism supply begins and would be a reality until the 1990s. This somewhat chaotic tourism boom made the tourist industry the biggest contributor to the economy of Algarve and the largest employer in the region. Starting as a fast-paced tourism urbanization hotspot between the 1960s and 1990s, the Algarve had morphed itself into a seasonal metropolis by the 2010s.


title: Algarve

text: During this process, the Algarve has remained anyway a fairly exotic region for Portuguese citizens from other regions in mainland Portugal due to its Mediterranean climate, unique foods, architecture and geographical location – in modern times many Portuguese residing in other parts of the country traditionally spend their summer break or own a holiday home in Algarve. The state-run University of Algarve was founded in January 1979 and for the Fall 2021 semester had about 9,000 students enrolled. Its medical school opened in 2009. In 1991, the construction of the A22 motorway (also known as "Via Infante de Sagres", named so after Henry the Navigator) which crosses the Algarve from west to east began and by 2003 it was fully completed. It connects Lagos in western Algarve to the Guadiana International Bridge over the Portugal-Spain international river border in eastern Algarve.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve is located in the southernmost area of continental Portugal and the southwesternmost area of the Iberian Peninsula and mainland Europe, covering an area of . It borders to the north with the Alentejo region (Alentejo Litoral and Baixo Alentejo), to the south and west with the Atlantic Ocean, and to the east the Guadiana River marks the border with Spain. The highest point is located northwest in the Monchique mountains, with a maximum altitude of on Pico da Fóia.


title: Algarve

text: The western part of the Algarve is known as Barlavento and the east as Sotavento. The name is undoubtedly due to the prevailing wind on the south coast of the Algarve but the historical origin of these divisions is uncertain and quite remote. Barlavento and Sotavento both have eight municipalities and one main city (Faro in Sotavento and Portimão in Barlavento).


title: Algarve

text: The region is also home to the Ria Formosa Lagoon, a nature reserve of over and a stopping place for hundreds of different species of birds. This system of barrier islands communicates with the sea through six inlets. The length of the south-facing coastline is roughly . Beyond the westernmost point of Cape St. Vincent it stretches a further to the north. The coastline is notable for picturesque limestone caves and grottoes by the sea, particularly around Lagos, Portimão, Lagoa and Albufeira, which are accessible by powerboat.


title: Algarve

text: Researchers agree that the Lisbon metropolitan area and the Algarve are the two regions in mainland Portugal most at risk of experiencing earthquakes and tsunamis strong enough to cause catastrophic loss of human life and infrastructure. Two earthquakes in the 18th century were the last time such catastrophic events occurred in the Algarve – the 1722 Algarve earthquake and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve as a whole is one of the warmest places of Southern Europe, with an Atlantic influenced Mediterranean climate, it has mild wet winters and warm to very hot, dry summers. It is overall the sunniest region in Europe, with annual sunshine values ranging from 2600 h in the Monchique Range, to values well above 3100 h on the southern coast.


title: Algarve

text: Generally, winter sees only subtle differences in daily maxima along the coast, mostly between , though temperatures as high as have been recorded. Conversely, overnight lows are higher in the west, with Sagres and Vila do Bispo averaging , whilst to the east, averages are lower and is more common. Temperatures very rarely fall below freezing (< ). On the interior, nights are usually cooler, averaging .


title: Algarve

text: Summer sees its highest average temperatures in the east, where the maxima ranges from in the coast and in the interior. Daily temperatures in the Vicentine Coast are much cooler, usually maxima, consequence of the strong upwelling western Portugal experiences. The Algarvian interior can get very hot in the summer, temperatures above are not uncommon. Overnight lows are often independent on the location, around in most of the Algarve.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve gets between of precipitation per year on average. December is the wettest month and July is the driest. The overall precipitation is determined mostly by the precipitation received in the winter (summers are very dry in most of the region). It has its highest values in the mountainous interior, and its lowest on the far east (in the Guadiana Valley) and the southwest (Sagres Point and Cape St. Vincent).


title: Algarve

text: Sea-surface temperatures in the Algarve are generally cool, though milder than the remaining west-facing coasts of Portugal. Around the Sagres Point, the upwelling phenomena further decreases surface ocean temperatures. In the winter, both western and southern coasts average sea-surface temperatures of around . In the summer, it rises to around , with their highest in September, however, southern coastal waters near the Gulf of Cádiz tend to have slightly higher temperatures on average than the western Vicentine Coast.


title: Algarve

text: About 450,000 permanent inhabitants (90 residents per km) live in the area, although this figure increases to over a million people at the height of summer, due to an influx of tourists. The Algarve has several cities, towns, and villages; the region's capital is the city of Faro, while other cities include Albufeira, Lagoa, Lagos, Loulé, Olhão, Portimão, Quarteira, Silves, Tavira, and Vila Real de Santo António, in addition to various summer retreats such as Vilamoura, Praia da Rocha, Armação de Pêra, Alvor, Monte Gordo, Alcoutim, and Sagres.


title: Algarve

text: Before 2004, the Faro District was the administrative unit governing the Algarve. In 2004, the Greater Metropolitan Area of the Algarve was formed, which was converted into an intermunicipal community in 2008. The Algarve is also a NUTS II and NUTS III statistical region. The intermunicipal community of the Algarve is subdivided into 16 municipalities:


title: Algarve

text: Between 2001 and 2020, the Algarve was the only Portuguese region where an increase in the number of newborns was reported (4,164 babies in 2001; 4,323 babies in 2020; a rise of 3.8%). 25% of those newborns had a foreign mother. Mostly Brazilian mothers, but also a rising number of Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani mothers together with a sizable, already established former trend of Romanian, Ukrainian and Moldovan mothers.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve's human development index (HDI) stands at 0.847 (2019) while Portugal's HDI average is 0.864 (2019) and Lisbon Metropolitan Area's is 0.901 (2019) – it is the 4th most developed region of Portugal out of seven regions. However, with a GDP per capita at 85.2% of the European Union average, the Algarve has the second highest purchasing power in the country, standing only behind Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Agricultural products of the region include fig, almond, orange, carob, olive, avocado and cork oak. Horticulture is important and the region's landscape is known for the large areas of land covered with greenhouses which are used to that end. Several types of fruit and veggies such as tomatoes, cauliflowers, strawberry and raspberry, are commercially grown and exported. Fishing and aquaculture are important activities in the coastal area of the Algarve, with sardines, squids, soles, cyprinids, gilt-head bream, and various seafood, including oysters and the grooved carpet shell, being the major products. The Algarve's wines are also renowned. Four wines in the region have Protected Designation of Origin ("Denominação de Origem Controlada" – DOC): Lagoa DOC, Lagos DOC, Portimão DOC, and Tavira DOC. Food processing, including value added products (traditional, local raw agricultural products that have been modified or enhanced to have a higher market value than before) such as innovative fig, orange, almond and carob-based products, cement (CIMPOR has a major cement plant in Loulé) and construction are the main industries. Cork, having an historical industrial tradition in Silves and São Brás de Alportel municipalities since the 19th century but in decline by the 1930s, is still used as a material for the production of several items by newer industries that make products ranging from cork stoppers to fashionware. Pelcor, headquartered in São Brás de Alportel, is the first luxury brand of fashion and lifestyle accessories in cork skin combining design, innovation and sustainability.


title: Algarve

text: Tourism-related activities are extensive and make up the bulk of the Algarve's economy during summer. The Algarve's economy has always been closely linked to the sea. Fishing and fish processing have been an important activity since ancient times. This is atested by archeological evidence of garum production in Algarve during the Roman era. The oldest fish canning factory of Portugal was that of Conservas Ramirez established by Sebastian Ramirez in Vila Real de Santo António, Eastern Algarve in 1853, but the long-established fish canning industry entered in decline in the region due to a scarcity of tuna and sardines in Algarve's waters because they were the main raw materials used by the industry. Similarly to what happened to the declining Algarvean cork industry in the 1930s, many companies folded and others moved to Northern Portugal in the process. However, successful fish canning industry persists with a number of factories like those of Conserveira do Sul and others. Coincidentaly, with this decline in fish canning in the region, since the 1960s the Algarve has embraced tourism which has become its most important economic activity. Faro International Airport located 4 km from downtown Faro, the administrative center of the region of the Algarve in Portugal, was constructed during the 1960s and inaugurated in 1965. In 2019, the airport reached a record-breaking 9 million passengers handled a year.


title: Algarve

text: With the increase in life quality and purchasing power of the Algarve's population, many shopping malls have been constructed since the 1990s and 2000s. An Ikea, the first in the Algarve, opened in Loulé, at the time one of the only five in Portugal. In 2017, the Algarve was the Portuguese region that experienced the biggest economic growth, an increase of 4.6% of its GDP.


title: Algarve

text: With great potential for solar power generation, the Algarve is becoming an international hotspot for large solar farming projects. The largest such project in Portugal and one of the largest unsubsidised solar power plants in Europe at the time, was inaugurated in Alcoutim in 2021.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve has been experiencing a strong development since the beginning of the 1960s, initially due to the need to accommodate its foreign visitors. The region started the construction of an airport in the early 1960s, followed by better infrastructure of other types, mainly roads, sanitation, power grids, telecommunications, hospitals, and housing. Private investors, with the support of the region’s municipalities, also began the construction of a variety of hotels, resorts, golf courses (which are considered to be some of the best in Europe), and villas.


title: Algarve

text: All this led to a large development in the region, especially for the locals, who had previously lived in harsher circumstances. Today, the Algarve is amongst the regions in Portugal with the best quality of life. Due to the austerity measures introduced in 2011, tolls were placed on the main motorway that crosses the region (the A22 motorway which is also officially known as "Via do lnfante") to offset the expense of its maintenance. The University of Algarve, a state-run university founded in 1979, has been an important source of innovation and entrepreneurship for the whole region and plays a role as a major driving force of economic growth and development in the Algarve.


title: Algarve

text: In the 1960s, the Algarve became a popular destination for tourists, mainly from the United Kingdom which still is the origin of the largest group of foreigners in the Algarve. It has since become a common destination for people from Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, France, Sweden and Italy, not only as tourists who visit the Algarve but also as residing expats who settle in the region and buy property there. The Algarve's mild climate and hours of sunshine per year have attracted interest from Portuguese and other European people wishing to have a holiday home or residence in the region. Being a region of Portugal, and therefore in the European Union, any EU citizen has the right to freely buy property and reside with little formality in the Algarve. Algarve-based publications and newspapers are written in English specifically for this community.


title: Algarve

text: The Brazilian community in the Algarve is the second largest expat community in the region after the British, followed by important numbers of Ukrainian, Romanian, Moldovan, Indian, Nepalese, Sinhalese, Bangladeshi and Pakistani people who arrived there to work in retail, hospitality industry, construction, agriculture and manufacturing. In the late 2010s, the Algarve saw a high increase in Canadian, American and Australian tourists too. In the Algarve, the expatriate population from high income economies include a large number of pensioners, namely from countries like the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden and the US. Portuguese people from other parts of the country also visit the region in large numbers, especially in the peak of the summer (July and August) and a sizable number of Portuguese citizens residing in other Portuguese regions, including retired people, own a holiday home in the Algarve. Several international studies have concluded that the Algarve is among the world's best places to retire.


title: Algarve

text: Tourist attractions in the region include its beaches, Mediterranean climate, safety, cuisine, and relatively low prices. Well-known beaches in the Algarve include Praia da Luz, Praia da Rocha, Marinha Beach, Armação de Pêra, Praia dos Pescadores, Quarteira, Vale do Lobo, Fuzeta, Barril Beach, Manta Rota and Monte Gordo. A well-known spa town is Caldas de Monchique. In addition to its natural features and beaches, the Algarve has invested in the creation of a network of golf courses.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve is also popular for religious tourism, notably pilgrimages to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Piety (best known as the Sovereign Mother), a Marian shrine dedicated to the patron saint of Loulé, that attract thousands of pilgrims of the Catholic faith to the city, or minor pilgrimages of faithful Catholics to the site of putative apparitions of Our Lady Mother of Goodness which had supposedly occurred in 1999 near the village of São Marcos da Serra.


title: Algarve

text: Tourism plays an important role in the economy of the Algarve. A large number of seasonal job opportunities are tourism-related and are fulfilled by thousands of locals and immigrants. Due to its seasonal nature, most of the economy relies on the good weather available mostly for only about 5–6 months (characterized by a prolonged lack of rain and temperatures above 25 °C throughout the day), meaning that many Algarvians go unemployed during the low season. Nonetheless, due to the very high monetary income that the high season brings, most people in the Algarve are still able to have comfortable lives even while unemployed. Delivery of superior touristic services and products in a convenient and engaging way, also known as luxury tourism, is also found in several areas across the Algarve. The Golden Triangle, a first among such affluent areas, is located outside of Faro, capital of the Algarve, being known for its luxury resorts and Michelin star restaurants. According to World Travel Awards, the Algarve was Europe's leading golf destination in 2013 and 2014. Over 25 top-class courses are located in Algarve, most of which were designed by legendary names such as Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Jack Nicklaus, and Christy O'Connor, Jr. In 2018, the region's income from tourism was over a billion euros; the number of visitors totaled 4.2 million. Tourism contributed €1.08 billion to the economy in that year.


title: Algarve

text: Accommodation in the Algarve ranges from high-rise resorts in places such as Albufeira, Vilamoura, Praia da Rocha and Armação de Pêra to apartment rental, bed and breakfast, hostels and traditional guesthouses located in small towns and villages, both inland and alongside the Algarve coast. Over the years, tourists with less acquisitive power started to visit the Algarve in large numbers and steering away from expensive resorts, opting instead for more affordable touristic establishments such as vacation rentals, guesthouses and hostels. Besides affordability, a higher flexibility in rules and conditions, good overall location, as well as a greater hospitality and interaction with guests, are often cited as some of the appealing factors of these accommodations. Throughout the Algarve, local accommodation, as its colloquially known, employs over 20 thousand people in more than 32 thousand legal establishments and generates an estimated 980 million Euros yearly. The vast majority of tourists who seek this type of accommodation are British, Portuguese and French, but an exponential increase in tourists from Germany, Spain, the Benelux and Brazil has also been seen.


title: Algarve

text: Camping, motorhoming and caravaning are also options for travelers and tourists in general across the Algarve. Both free and paid motorhome areas, suitable car parks and camping parks can be found around the entire region to this end. However, the Portuguese police forces may regularly patrol the areas where these activities are forbidden and can fine transgressors.


title: Algarve

text: Although international tourism and a generally high receptivity to globalism, economic globalization and foreign direct investment have brought a relatively high level of prosperity and development to the region, many personalities criticize the environmental impacts, the high cost of living and the eradication of the Algarve's cultural and traditional characteristics that such outside influence has brought. Algarve native Fernando Silva Grade (1955-2019), a nationally renowned plastic artist and activist with a licentiate degree in biology awarded by the University of Lisbon in 1983, in his 2014 book "O Algarve Tal como o Destruímos" (loose translation: The Algarve as we destroyed it), vehemently opposed the proliferation of the mass tourism and construction sectors, which, in his opinion, eroded large portions of a world unique coastline, degraded and destroyed Algarve's traditional architecture, along with the peaceful and slow-paced way of life that were once ubiquitous throughout the region. He further went on to criticize the inapt attitudes of politicians and city halls which continuously fail to preserve this legacy.


title: Algarve

text: Other critics underline the over-dependency of the Algarve on tourism and the "sun and beach" modality of tourism in particular, the one mostly advertised by local and national authorities and, thus, most widespread. They accentuate the saturation of beach-side resorts that leave other types of tourist establishments, such as the ones dedicated to nature and health, with little occupancy. These critics also stress that overcrowdedness, filthiness and pollution are the consequences of this lack of diversity in the Algarve's tourism industry. In addition, due to international mass tourism, some areas of the Algarve are drug dealing and prostitution hotspots, including luxury prostitution and male prostitution, performed mostly by foreign sex workers.


title: Algarve

text: The England-inspired, England-reliant tourist product of the Algarve since the 1960s is a source of criticism in Portugal to the point that the Algarve region has been compared to a colony of the English. Portuguese tourists perceive their status as tourists in the Portuguese region of Algarve as being constantly challenged by the extreme Anglophilia of the Algarvian people and its tourist offer.


title: Algarve

text: The region of the Algarve has a rich ethnographic heritage, with centuries-old customs, traditions and historical heritage. The Algarve is a cultural and historical point of interest all year round, but at particular times, such as Easter, Christmas, or even Spring, together with its gastronomic delicacies, the Algarve region has an old, multifaceted legacy that also shaped its regional cultural identity within Portugal. The Algarve is a place that gathers many settlements, from prehistoric times, to Phoenician, Roman, Visigothic, Arab and Christian Reconquista times, there are several testimonies that left a little piece of themselves, to form the Algarve of today. Since the menhirs and megalithic monuments like the Megalithic Monuments of Alcalar and the Menhirs of Lavajo that prove the presence of the first humans of its history, also the Romans left the testimonies of their presence and culture. The Roman Ruins of Milreu in Estói, the Roman ruins of Cerro da Vila in Vilamoura or the Roman ruins of Quinta da Abicada in Mexilhoeira Grande, are good examples of Roman vestiges in the Algarve, being some of them equipped with a dedicated interpretive center to tell their story. The Islamic occupation period from which a great heritage remains, present in various aspects of the Algarve culture beginning with the name of the region since the word "Algarve" goes back to the Arabic word "al-Gharb" meaning West, including castles and fortresses, vestiges of a unique ribat, the Ribat of Arrifana, as well as alcarias, and some churches that were adapted from ancient mosques, in addition to strong influences in popular architecture, also left its mark. Vila Real de Santo António, to the far east of the region, near Spain, is the best Algarve example of the strong legacy that the Marquis of Pombal left in Portuguese urban planning after the great earthquake of 1755.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve dialect is a dialect of Portuguese as spoken in the Algarve. The Algarve dialect, very closely related to Alentejan Portuguese, is much more than a mere accent; it expresses a way of life, with its traditional sayings, its well-known and highly colorful curses, idioms, proverbs, and expressions. It bears the influences of Arabic, archaic Portuguese and the southern variant of Castillian. Until the end of the 20th century it was pervasive but afterwards it became less common among younger, highly educated Algarveans who live near the coastal strip and the main urban centers. In any case, a majority of people in some places of the Algarve besides the sparsely populated, ageing hilly interior, like areas of Lagos, Portimão, Albufeira, Loulé, Faro, Olhão, Tavira and Vila Real de Santo António coastal municipalities, still speak the dialect employing its characteristic, strong accent on a daily basis.


title: Algarve

text: The most striking symbol of the traditional Algarve architecture is undoubtedly the chimney, which reflected the individuality of the owner of the house and showed off his possessions. No two chimneys were alike, and the more intricate the design, the more expensive the work. Examples of these symbols of popular art and technical skill can be seen in the Algarve's rural hinterland, in the most affluent dwellings. The "platibanda" (platband) is another characteristic feature of the Algarve's architectural heritage. It is an elegant decorative strip that lines the facades and hides the roof or cladding, ornamented with geometric shapes and colors. It contrasts with the white of the whitewash and matches the colored bars that frame doors and windows. The four-sloped, or scissor truss are typical of aristocratic cities, and denote a strong Eastern aesthetic influence, which traveled along with silks and spices.


title: Algarve

text: They are associated with Tavira, the princess of the Gilão, a well-preserved architectural gem and once a port of great strategic importance. They also exist in Faro, but their presence is residual today. In the western Algarve the winds blow from the Atlantic coast and, in its interior, there is the mountain climate. Here the houses are generally simpler, less sophisticated, built in masonry of mud or stone, and unadorned, only whitewashed. These simple rural houses are also found, in their charming simplicity, in the Caldeirão mountain range. On the coast, it is frequent the construction of açoteias, roof terraces of Arabic inspiration that were used to watch the sea, waiting for the boats returning from their fishing trips. It was also in these private spaces that fruit and fish were dried, and that people rested on hot summer nights. Olhão is the ex-libris of this architecture of pure and clean lines, deserving the nickname of cubist city, with its buildings clustered in cubes in a sinuous plan, direct influence of the architecture of Morocco.


title: Algarve

text: Corridinho is the traditional dance of the Algarve bearing some resemblance to the polka and mazurka. The corridinho is a form of Portuguese folk dance whose the origin is unclear and believed older, although it gained popularity in the 1800s.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve is also famous for its pottery and ceramics, particularly hand-painted pottery and "azulejos", which are painted, tin-glazed ceramic tiles. Numerous ceramics and pottery outlets are open throughout the Algarve, including a number of potteries established by foreign artists interested in the old tradition of Algarve pottery. For working potteries and ceramics workshops, the main (or best-known) pottery centers are located in Almancil, Loulé, Porches and Silves, but many other Algarve ceramic and pottery workshops and shops are found across the entire Algarve region. Other representative handicraft activities of the Algarve are the "empreita", a braid of fine palm leaf rolled up in the most diverse shapes, and the basketry, resulting from the technique of weaving the cane and the wicker, with such perfection that makes the Algarve basketry famous in the Portuguese south.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve gastronomy dates back to the historical times of the Roman and Arabic presence, constituting, along with the climate of the region, one of the main points of tourist interest. The ingredients used reflect the fresh flavors of the sea and the pleasant and strong aromas of the countryside. From the "arroz de lingueirão" rice with razor clams from Faro, the grilled sardines from Portimão to the sweets "Dom Rodrigos" from Lagos, there are dishes and delicacies for all tastes. The town of Monchique stands out in this chapter because it is known for its pork production, proof of which are the well-known sausages made with pork meat (sausage, morcela black pudding, farinheira and chouriço) and presunto hams, exhibited annually at the Feira dos Enchidos and Feira do Presunto, respectively. The typical "aguardente de medronho" (arbutus berry brandy) produced in this region both artisanally and industrially, is also a very well known fruit brandy in the region. The liqueurs made with regional products are also sought after. Those include ginjinha (sour cherry liqueur) and amêndoa amarga (bitter almond liqueur).


title: Algarve

text: Old fig and almond-based sweets and desserts as well as newer carob-based products; a plethora of fish and seafood dishes near the coast; and pork and chicken dishes from inland Algarve, are among the most typical elements of its regional cuisine. Cataplana; frango de churrasco like that known as "frango de churrasco à la Guia"; caldeirada; Portuguese tuna steak 'Algarve style'; a variety of seafood dishes which may contain various shellfish like clams, mussels, crab and shrimp; grilled sardines; Algarve style stuffed and fried squid; marzipan; and xarém are some of the typical regional culinary specialties in the Algarve. Carne de porco à alentejana, which is named after the neighboring region of Alentejo, is speculated by some to have its roots in the Algarve region because the clams are much more popular as food in seaside cities, towns and villages like those of the Algarve rather than in places far from the ocean. It may be an example of fusion cuisine between pork dishes of inner Alentejo where pig farming is extensive and seafood dishes of coastal Algarve where shellfish abound.


title: Algarve

text: Although Loulé hosts the largest carnival in the Algarve, every town and village in the Algarve has its own party. It usually starts with a children's parade through the streets on the first day, where the little ones march, walk or dance in dresses and masks. People gather in the streets to cheer on the children. In most villages there are dances every night in the village halls. The dancing starts early and ends late, with no breaks in the local carnival music that entertains people of all ages. Cities and towns also organize street parties, with local dancers, some as young as 6 years old, dressed up in their national costumes, entertaining everyone with their traditional instruments and complicated dance steps.


title: Algarve

text: Others organize parades with music, fanfares, floats, and local groups dressed up in all kinds of costumes – from the simplest to the most elaborate. Everyone joins in clapping and stamping their feet, always celebrating and cheering. Candy and streamers are thrown towards the crowd that stretches along the streets, reminding them that this is a time for feasting and celebration. In the western Algarve, the Barlavento, Odiáxere is a place to visit – there are 5 days of entertainment, parades and music. Lagos and Sagres also offer lots of entertainment during the festivities. In the Central and Eastern Algarve, the Sotavento – besides the big event in Loulé – Quarteira, São Brás, Olhão, Moncarapacho, Tavira and Vila Real de Santo António all organize festivals and corsos in their own way, smaller in size but equally lively and joyful. Although the festivities in the Algarve are now heavily based on the samba style of Brazilian Carnival, the old tradition of playing pranks is still present. Stylishly dressed student girls tour shopping malls, bars, cafes and the streets, singing their satirical songs about the government, politicians and world events.


title: Algarve

text: The coastal seafaring people of the Algarve bred the Portuguese Water Dog. From there the breed expanded to all around Portugal's coast, where they were taught to herd fish into fishermen's nets, retrieve lost tackle or broken nets, and act as couriers from ship to ship, or ship to shore. This dog breed is now a distinctive dog breed of both Portugal and the Algarve region in particular.


title: Algarve

text: A paradise for bluefin tuna fishing, the Algarve in Portugal witness each year the migration of bluefin tuna that runs in front of the coasts of Olhão. The sea waters in this region are also populated by various whales, dolphins and porpoises at different times throughout the year. The most common species are the common dolphin ("Delphinus delphis") and bottlenose dolphin ("Tursiops truncatus"). On the Ria Formosa Natural Park one can find unique species in Portugal and most of Europe such as the chameleon, a reptile that in Portugal only exists in the Algarve, and one of the largest populations of seahorses in the world.


title: Algarve

text: The Algarve is divided into three regions: the Litoral – the southern coast with its beaches; the Barrocal – the northern interior and the Serra de Monchique in the northwest and the Serra do Caldeirão in the northeast. The vegetation of the northern Algarve is divided into forests, hilly terrain, scrubland, fertile land and pastures with mountain springs and streams, lakes and waterfalls.


title: Algarve

text: The south is dominated by the typical vegetation of Ria Formosa lagoon and dune system. Regarding flora in the south of Algarve, there are two main features: on one hand, the marshes – areas submerged by high tide and uncovered at low tide – with its halophytic vegetation (vegetation that tolerates high saline levels, lack of soil oxygen and long periods of emersion).


title: Algarve

text: On the other hand, the dune flora – species adapted to strong winds, excessive salinity and high permeability of the soils – which presents species as the "Ammophila arenaria", the "Armeria maritima", the "Aster tripolium", the "Pancratium maritimum" and the "Otanthus maritimus". At the mouth of the Espiche River near Armação de Pera and Albufeira an area of wetland called the Salgados Lagoon fed by the waters of that river is found. The Salgados Lagoon has been classified as an IBA (Important Bird Area). Further west, near Alvor, one can find the Ria de Alvor (Alvor Estuary) located between the towns of Lagos and Portimão, covering 1,700 hectares with a mix of habitats of brushwood, forest and agricultural land, comprising the estuary, dunes, marshes and salt-pans. On the west and southwestern tip of coastal Algarve, there is the Southwest Alentejo and Vicentine Coast Natural Park, another natural park of the Algarve which extends further north along the Portuguese coast to the Alentejo region.


title: Algarve

text: Cultivars like the "Prunus dulcis", "Ficus carica" and "Citrus × sinensis" are regarded as typical in the region and are widespread across the Algarve landscape but the most relevant wild tree and shrub species of Algarve include:


title: Algarve

text: State-run and private education institutions cover all the educational needs of the Algarve's population from kindergarten to university education. Primary and secondary education schools from grade 1 to grade 12, including a number of international schools (examples include Aljezur International School, Deutsche Schule Algarve, International School São Lourenço, Nobel International School Algarve, Vale Verde International School and Vilamoura International School), as well as a wide network of state-run and private kindergartens, can be found across the Algarve and in particular at the most densely populated littoral strip. The University of Algarve, headquartered in Faro, with an extension in Portimão, is a public university which awards undergraduate, integrated master, master and doctorate degrees in fields ranging from biomedical sciences, landscape architecture, agronomy or marine biology to economics, psychology, sociology or languages, literatures and cultures. The population of the Algarve is also served by two private higher education institutions (Instituto Piaget in Silves and Instituto Superior Manuel Teixeira Gomes in Portimão).


title: Algarve

text: Sports clubs in the Algarve include several football teams (S.C. Olhanense, Portimonense S.C., S.C. Farense, Imortal de Albufeira, Louletano D.C., etc.) which play in the Portuguese football league system. S.C. Farense and Portimonense S.C. are the most successful football clubs in the Algarve and usually compete in one of the two main top-tier professional football leagues in Portugal. The Algarve Cup, an invitational tournament for national teams in women's association football hosted by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) is held annually in the Algarve since 1994.


title: Algarve

text: Cycling is a popular sport in Portugal and the region of Algarve has long-established, noteworthy professional cycling teams which compete in the Volta a Portugal and other major cycling events. The Volta ao Algarve is the oldest and most popular road bicycle racing competition in the Algarve region. The most successful of those professional cycling teams of the Algarve in the UCI Continental Tour are Louletano–Loulé Concelho and Atum General–Tavira–Maria Nova Hotel.


title: Algarve

text: The Almond Blossom Cross Country (Portuguese: Cross Internacional das Amendoeiras em Flor) is an annual international cross country running competition first organized in 1977 which takes place in Albufeira, in early March. It is one of the IAAF permit meetings which serve as qualifying events for the IAAF World Cross Country Championships.


title: Algarve

text: There are numerous open-water swimming events throughout the year as well as tennis. The Algarve is also home to some of the world's most renowned golf-courses.


title: Algarve

text: Due to the strong Nortada winds blowing through the South coast of Portugal, the Algarve is a summer holiday destination for windsports. Sailing, windsurfing and especially kitesurfing have a large and growing community in the Algarve. The nature of the Algarve coastline offers a mix of flat water lagoons such as those of the Ria Formosa Nature Park, or the waves of Sagres and the South-west coast.


title: Genpact

text: Genpact is an American professional services firm legally domiciled in Bermuda with its headquarters in New York City, New York. The company currently employs more than 100,000 people and provides services to clients in over 30 countries worldwide. Genpact is listed on the NYSE and in 2021 generated revenues of US$3.71 billion.


title: Genpact

text: Genpact was founded in 1997 as a unit of General Electric. The company was founded as GE Capital International Services (GECIS) in New Delhi. Starting with 20 employees under the leadership of CEO Pramod Bhasin, its charter was to provide business process outsourcing solutions to GE's businesses. In the beginning, GECIS created processes for outsourcing back-office activities for GE Capital such as processing car loans and credit card transactions. It was an experimental concept at the time and the beginning of the Business-Process-Outsourcing (BPO) industry.


title: Genpact

text: One year after its launch, GECIS employed about 800 people and generated revenues of US$4 million. By 2001, GECIS operations had grown to 12,000 employees and the company began to manage a wide range of processes across GE's financial services and manufacturing businesses. Jack Welsh, CEO of GE at the time, said that GECIS was a key driver of GE’s growth between 1998 and 2001, and was responsible for reducing operating costs by approximately US$1 billion.


title: Genpact

text: In 2003, GE reduced its stake in GECIS to 40% and sold the remainder to two American private equity firms. At the time of the sale, GECIS employed around 13,000 people in India and 4,000 people in the US, China, Hungary and Mexico, providing a range of solutions in areas such as finance and accounting, insurance claim processing, IT management and technical support.


title: Genpact

text: By 2004, GECIS oversaw around 700 business processes for GE that had migrated from the US to India, generating revenues of US$426 million.


title: Genpact

text: In January 2005, the company became independent and started to serve clients outside of GE. As part of this transition, the company changed its name to Genpact for “generating business impact.” Also in 2005, the company opened additional offices in India and by the end of the year, recorded US$493 million in revenue, with 15% coming from new global clients, and the remaining 85% from GE. In 2006, Genpact further expanded in India, the Philippines, Mexico and China.


title: Genpact

text: In August 2007, Genpact was listed on the NYSE under the symbol 'G'. The company continued to grow, opening offices in six additional countries that same year and launching a joint venture with the Indian company NDTV to offer outsourcing services for the media industry. In 2008, the company crossed US$1 billion in revenue, with 53% coming from clients other than GE.


title: Genpact

text: From 2010 onward, the company increasingly focused its operations and presence in Europe and the US. As part of its shift west, the company moved its headquarters to New York and in 2011, Bhasin stepped down as CEO and became non-executive vice chairman of the company. He was succeeded on 17 June 2011 by NV "Tiger”" Tyagarajan, who was appointed to the Board of Directors and became Genpact's new CEO. Tyagarajan was previously CEO of Genpact from 1999 to 2002, when he led the business through a critical growth phase as a subsidiary of GE. When Genpact became an independent company, he rejoined the firm from GE Capital U.S. as executive vice president of sales and business development from 2005 to 2009. Thereafter, he took on the role of the firm's chief operating officer, before being named CEO in 2011.


title: Genpact

text: In February 2019, Genpact contractors in Hyderabad who were assigned content moderation tasks for Facebook reportedly experienced psychological trauma while evaluating videos depicting suicide, torture, terrorism, and pornography.


title: Genpact

text: In September 2020, UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency contracted Genpact to supply an Artificial intelligence software tool to process the expected high volume of COVID-19 vaccine Adverse drug reactions to ensure that no details from the ADRs reaction texts are missed. MHRA and Genpact announced an expansion of the partnership in January 2022. In August 2021, Genpact signed a multi-year digital transformation contract with Coca-Cola Beverages in Africa.


title: Genpact

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Genpact opened its internal learning and reskilling platform, "Genome", to public access.


title: Genpact

text: That same year, the company expanded its operations in Germany, and was added to the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index. The company also signed an agreement with the National Institute of Industrial Engineering in Mumbai to establish a Digital Manufacturing and Supply Chain center, supporting the transformation from traditional to digital manufacturing.


title: Genpact

text: Genpact is managed by a leadership team of 17 members (2022), that the company refers to as Genpact Leadership Council. N.V. "Tiger" Tyagarajan has served as president and CEO of Genpact since 2011.


title: Genpact

text: South Africa, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Barbados, Costa Rica, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Canada, USA, France, Hungary, Germany, Netherlands, Nordics, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Switzeland, United Kingdom, Australia.


title: Genpact

text: In June 2017, Genpact announced Genpact Cora, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform for enterprises. The platform has an application program interface (API) design and open architecture that includes Genpact’s own intellectual property as well as other providers. The platform's claimed benefits include deciphering large chunks of data, seamless customer service, faster financial reporting, and increasing speed to market.


title: Mount Vernon

text: Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia. It is located south of Washington, D.C. and Alexandria, Virginia and is across the river from Prince George's County, Maryland.


title: Mount Vernon

text: The Washington family acquired land in the area in 1674. Around 1734, the family embarked on an expansion of its estate that continued under George Washington, who began leasing the estate in 1754 before becoming its sole owner in 1761.


title: Mount Vernon

text: The mansion was built of wood in a loose Palladian style; the original house was built by George Washington's father Augustine, around 1734. George Washington expanded the house twice, once in the late 1750s and again in the 1770s. It remained Washington's home for the rest of his life. Following his death in 1799, under the ownership of several successive generations of the family, the estate progressively declined as revenues were insufficient to maintain it adequately.


title: Mount Vernon

text: In 1858, the house's historical importance was recognized and it was saved from ruin by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association; this philanthropic organization acquired it together with part of the Washington property estate. Escaping the damage suffered by many plantation houses during the American Civil War, Mount Vernon was restored.


title: Mount Vernon

text: Mount Vernon was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is still owned and maintained in trust by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association and is open every day of the year. Allowing the public to see the estate is not an innovation, but part of an over 200-year-old tradition started by George Washington himself. In 1794 he wrote: "I have no objection to any sober or orderly person's gratifying their curiosity in viewing the buildings, Gardens, &ca. about Mount Vernon."


title: Mount Vernon

text: When George Washington's ancestors acquired the estate, it was known as Little Hunting Creek Plantation, after the nearby Little Hunting Creek. However, when Washington's older half-brother, Lawrence Washington, inherited it, he renamed it after Vice Admiral Edward Vernon, who had been his commanding officer during the War of Jenkins' Ear and captured Portobelo from the Spanish. When George Washington inherited the property, he retained the name.


title: Mount Vernon

text: The current property consists of , the Mansion and over 30 outbuildings being situated near the riverfront. The property contained when Washington lived there.


title: Mount Vernon

text: The present mansion was built in phases from approximately 1734, by an unknown architect, under the supervision of Augustine Washington. This staggered and unplanned evolution is indicated by the off-center main door. As completed and seen today, the house is in a loose Palladian style. The principal block, dating from about 1734, was a one-story house with a garret. In the 1750s, the roof was raised to a full second story and a third floor garret. There were also one-story extensions added to the north and south ends of the house; these were torn down during the next building phase. The present day mansion is .


title: Mount Vernon

text: In 1774, the second expansion began. A two-story wing was added to the south side. Two years later a large two-story room was added to the north side. Two single-story secondary wings were built in 1775. These secondary wings, which house the servants hall on the northern side and the kitchen on the southern side, are connected to the "corps de logis" by symmetrical, quadrant colonnades, built in 1778. The completion of the colonnades cemented the classical Palladian arrangement of the complex and formed a distinct "cour d'honneur", known at Mount Vernon as Mansion Circle, giving the house its imposing perspective.


title: Mount Vernon

text: The "corps de logis" has a hipped roof with dormers and the secondary wings have gable roofs with dormers. In addition to its second story, the importance of the "corps de logis" is further emphasized by two large chimneys piercing the roof and by a cupola surmounting the center of the house; this octagonal focal point has a short spire topped by a gilded dove of peace. This placement of the cupola is more in the earlier Carolean style than Palladian and was probably incorporated to improve ventilation of the enlarged attic and enhance the overall symmetry of the structure and the two wings; a similar cupola crowns the Governor's House at Williamsburg, of which Washington would have been aware.


title: Mount Vernon

text: Though no architect is known to have designed Mount Vernon, some attribute the design to John Ariss, a prominent Virginia architect who designed Paynes Church in Fairfax County (now destroyed) and likely Mount Airy in Richmond County. Other sources credit Colonel Richard Blackburn, who also designed Rippon Lodge in Prince William County and the first Falls Church. Blackburn's granddaughter Anne married Bushrod Washington, George's nephew, and is interred at the Washingtons' tomb on the grounds. Most architectural historians believe that the design of Mount Vernon is solely attributable to Washington alone and that the involvement of any other architects is based on conjecture.


title: Mount Vernon

text: The rooms at Mount Vernon have mostly been restored to their appearance at the time of George and Martha Washington's occupancy. Rooms include Washington's study, two dining rooms (the larger known as the New Room), the West Parlour, the Front Parlour, the kitchen and some bedrooms.


title: Mount Vernon

text: The interior design follows the classical concept of the exterior, but owing to the mansion's piecemeal evolution, the internal architectural featuresthe doorcases, mouldings and plasterworkare not consistently faithful to one specific period of the 18th-century revival of classical architecture. Instead they range from Palladianism to a finer and later neoclassicism in the style of Robert Adam. This varying of the classical style is best exemplified in the doorcases and surrounds of the principal rooms. In the West Parlour and Small Dining rooms there are doorcases complete with ionic columns and full pediments, whereas in the hall and passageways the doors are given broken pediments supported by an architrave. Many of the rooms are lined with painted panelling and have ceilings ornamented by plasterwork in a Neoclassical style; much of this plasterwork can be attributed to an English craftsman, John Rawlins, who arrived from London in 1771 bringing with him the interior design motifs then fashionable in the British capital.


title: Mount Vernon

text: Visitors to Mount Vernon now see Washington's study, a room to which in the 18th century only a privileged few were granted entry. This simply furnished room has a combined bathroom, dressing room and office; the room was so private that few contemporary descriptions exist. Its walls are lined with naturally grained paneling and matching bookcases. In contrast to the privacy of the study, since Washington's time, the grandest, most public and principal reception room has been the so-called New Room or Large Dining Rooma two-storied salon notable for its large Palladian window, occupying the whole of the mansion's northern elevation, and its fine Neoclassical marble chimneypiece. The history of this chimneypiece to some degree explains the overall restrained style of the house. When it was donated to Washington by English merchant Samuel Vaughan, Washington was initially reluctant to accept the gift, stating that it was "too elegant & costly I fear for my own room, & republican stile of living."


title: Mount Vernon

text: Efforts have been made to restore the rooms and maintain the atmosphere of the 18th century; this has been achieved by using original color schemes and by displaying furniture, carpets and decorative objects which are contemporary to the house. The rooms contain portraits and former possessions of George Washington and his family.


title: Mount Vernon

text: The gardens and grounds contain English boxwoods, taken from cuttings sent by Major General Henry Lee III ("Light Horse Harry" Lee, a Governor of Virginia and the father of Robert E. Lee), which were planted in 1786 by George Washington and now crowd the entry path. A carriage road skirts a grassy bowling green to approach the mansion entrance. To each side of the green is a garden contained by red brick walls. These Colonial Revival gardens grew the household's vegetables, fruit and other perishable items for consumption. The upper garden, located to the north, is bordered by the greenhouse. Ha-ha walls are used to separate the working farm from the pleasure grounds that Washington created for his family and guests. The overseer's quarter, spinning room, salt house, and gardener's house are between the upper garden and the mansion.


title: Mount Vernon

text: The lower garden, or southern garden, is bordered on the east by the storehouse and clerk's quarters, smokehouse, wash house, laundry yard, and coach house. A paddock and stable are on the southern border of the garden; east of them, a little down the hillside, is the icehouse. The original tomb is located along the river. The newer tomb in which the bodies of George and Martha Washington have rested since 1831 is south of the fruit garden; the slave burial ground is nearby, a little farther down the hillside. A "Forest Trail" runs through woods down to a recreated pioneer farm site on low ground near the river; the working farm includes a re-creation of Washington's 16-sided treading barn.


title: Mount Vernon

text: A museum and education center are on the grounds and exhibit examples of Washington's survey equipment, weapons, and clothing, as well as dentures worn by the President. The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington opened in 2013. The library fosters new scholarship about George Washington and safeguards original Washington books and manuscripts. The site is open for scholarship by appointment only.


title: Mount Vernon

text: In 1674, John Washington (the great-grandfather of President Washington) and Nicholas Spencer came into possession of the land from which Mount Vernon plantation would be carved, originally known by its Indian name of Epsewasson. The successful patent on the acreage was largely executed by Spencer, who acted as agent for his cousin Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper, the English landowner who controlled the Northern Neck of Virginia, in which the tract lay.


title: Mount Vernon

text: When John Washington died in 1677, his son Lawrence, George Washington's grandfather, inherited his father's stake in the property. In 1690, he agreed to formally divide the estimated 5,000 acre (20 km) estate with the heirs of Nicholas Spencer, who had died the previous year. The Spencers took the larger southern half bordering Dogue Creek in the September 1674 land grant from Lord Culpeper, leaving the Washingtons the portion along Little Hunting Creek. (The Spencer heirs paid Lawrence Washington of tobacco as compensation for their choice.)


title: Mount Vernon

text: Lawrence Washington died in 1698, bequeathing the property to his daughter Mildred. On 16 April 1726, she agreed to a one-year lease on the estate to her brother Augustine Washington, George Washington's father, for a peppercorn rent; a month later the lease was superseded by Augustine's purchase of the property for £180. He built the original house on the site around 1734, when he and his family moved from Pope's Creek to Eppsewasson, which he renamed Little Hunting Creek. The original stone foundations of what appears to have been a two-roomed house with a further two rooms in a half-story above are still partially visible in the present house's cellar.


title: Mount Vernon

text: Augustine Washington recalled his eldest son Lawrence (George's half-brother) home from school in England in 1738 and set him up on the family's Little Hunting Creek tobacco plantation, thereby allowing Augustine to move his family back to Fredericksburg at the end of 1739. In 1739, Lawrence, having reached his majority (age 21), began buying up parcels of land from the adjoining Spencer tract, starting with a plot around the grist mill on Dogue Creek. In mid-1740 Lawrence received a coveted officer's commission in the Regular British Army and made preparations to go off to war in the Caribbean with the newly formed American Regiment to fight in the War of Jenkins' Ear. He served under Admiral Edward Vernon; returning home, he named his estate after his commander.


title: Mount Vernon

text: Lawrence died in 1752, and his will stipulated that his widow should own a life estate in Mount Vernon, the remainder interest falling to his half-brother George; George Washington was already living at Mount Vernon and probably managing the plantation. Lawrence's widow, Anne Fairfax, remarried into the Lee family and moved out. Following the death of Anne and Lawrence's only surviving child in 1754, George, as executor of his brother's estate leased his sister-in-law's estate. Upon the death of Anne Fairfax in 1761, he succeeded to the remainder interest and became sole owner of the property.


title: Mount Vernon

text: In 1758, Washington began the first of two major additions and improvements by raising the house to two-and-a-half stories. The second expansion was begun during the 1770s, shortly before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. Washington had rooms added to the north and south ends, unifying the whole with the addition of the cupola and two-story piazza overlooking the Potomac River. The final expansion increased the mansion to 21 rooms and an area of 11,028 square feet. The great majority of the work was performed by enslaved African Americans and artisans.


title: Mount Vernon

text: Washington had been expanding the estate by the purchase of surrounding parcels of land since the late 1750s and was still adding to the estate well into the 1780s, including the River Farm estate. From 1759 until the Revolutionary War, Washington, who at the time aspired to become a prominent agriculturist, had five separate farms as part of his estate. He took a scientific approach to farming and kept extensive and meticulous records of both labor and results.


title: Mount Vernon

text: In a letter dated 20 September 1765, Washington writes about receiving poor returns for his tobacco production:


title: Mount Vernon

text: The tobacco market had declined, and many planters in northern Virginia converted to mixed crops. Like them, by 1766 Washington had ceased growing tobacco at Mount Vernon and had replaced the crop with wheat, corn, and other grains. Besides hemp and flax, he experimented with 60 other crops including cotton and silk. He also derived income from a gristmill which produced cornmeal and flour for export and also ground neighbors' grain for fees. Washington similarly sold the services of the estate's looms and blacksmith.


title: Mount Vernon

text: Washington built and operated a small fishing fleet, permitting Mount Vernon to export fish. Washington practiced the selective breeding of sheep in an effort to produce better quality wool. He was not as invested in animal husbandry as he was in cropping experiments, which were elaborate and included complex field rotations, nitrogen fixing crops and a range of soil amendments. The Washington household consumed a wider range of protein sources than was typical for the Chesapeake population of his day, which consumed a great deal of beef.