As we are extremely passionate about Algarve we would like to introduce you a little bit of a history of this amazing lands. The Algarve region boasts a stunning and rich history that dates back centuries, with influences from various civilizations such as the Romans, Moors, and Phoenicians. From ancient archaeological sites to charming historic towns, Algarve's past is a fascinating tapestry that continues to captivate visitors from around the world.

In times of globalization, it is important to preserve this areas. It is important not to end the customs and traditions that this unique region has. As for the architectural part, it is especially important to maintain this heritage, especially when the contact with the inhabitants is essential and conveys the cultural baggage of the place where we find ourselves. These places where there may still be the possibility of making a difference by respecting the nature that surrounds us and the entire built heritage, which differentiates us and makes us unique and unrepeatable.

The Algarve, which was Portugal's last bastion during the Reconquista, faced the sea, always open to the Mediterranean culture, rich in customs and traditions of distant cultural groups - the influence of traders and even pirates is identified, who passed through these lands to trade and to change the customs of the people. It is also a land that were exploited by caliphates, and even by misrule that led to mass migrations which left cultural and historical traces that remain until today and that can be discovered in castles, towers, villages and cities that make the Algarve unique and unrepeatable.

Early Settlements and Prehistoric Period

Those of the early settlement of peoples proved that the climate was milder in the vicissitudes of time. It was basically due to changes in the climate that allowed it to cultivate the vast fields, the lakes, and the existence of dense and humid thickets as a place of refuge and hunted by the man of the Paleolithic. Such lands were already inhabited 12,000 years before the Christian era, as the many archaeological finds testify to the underground.

The Algarve region, the most southern territory of Portugal, has a far-reaching history. The first signs of human presence go back to the Paleolithic, but it is in the Neolithic and the Copper Ages that the first great settlements were founded. Since remote times, the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula was a fundamental place of exchange of different cultures. During centuries the Tartessians lived next to the Phoenician mercantile colonies on the coast. The latter took advantage of the golden deposits that existed in the pre-inland and are at the origin of the age of splendor in which the Mediterranean knew the people that lived through the discoveries. Then it was the occupier that contributed most to the development and wealth of the current territory.

But let's start from the beginning.

Neolithic and Bronze Age Settlements

The first evidence of varied commercial relations is in the necropolis of the Alcalar, which contains pod and weapons of various types, including dagger elements, of Cogotas I type, and other Pod types of the northern peninsular, as well as pod and Iberian elements, on both the Argaric and the later Orientalizing period, linked to commercial relations. At the end of the Bronze Age, Algarve remains in use during the Roman period. There are simple or articulated buildings, isolated, being identified consistencies, pixidia, and other vessels inside, the residues of food and ceramics that allow the formulation of hypotheses regarding diet and table used by the Algarvian population.

The first indication of human settlement in the Algarve (or region that would later become the Algarve) was the Zambujal cultures (4000-3000 BC), where men began to better understand the process of grinding cereals and fish. This mode of subsistence allows the man to grow and settle in a given location. This type of lifestyle allows for the creation of villages or fortified settlements, with small walls and moats, as well as buildings dedicated to the storage of cereals. During the Bronze Age or Chalcolithic, between 1900-450 BC, a further advance allowed man to have a denser town, whose population, in addition to being dedicated to agriculture, become more specialized, as a result of its commercial and maritime relations with the Mediterranean. Pods found in tombs in the area of Santa Rita. It is also known that commercial relations are maintained along the coast to the north.

There were Neolithic pueblo settlements that date back to the 5th century. Chief among those towns was Monte Molião (close to Lagos). Researchers have found evidence of Roman influence in the town, running from the 2nd and 3rd century. While most of the occupations of the period of time, and the fortifications, occur closer to the coast, scattered from the Guadiana River to Vilamoura, isolated discoveries in the interior show occupation in the late Roman period.

Roman Influence and Presence

The Romans were consistent with the product but promoted a new entity, the Hispanian Empire which shaped the West of Iberia for nine centuries, and although beyond the Algarve and the NW of Morocco it relied on quite simple processes for precious metal recovery, only the arrival of the Arabs shut that period of history which the Arabs began to pave to overlap with the Romans by developing the old associations that the Semite in Iberia had opened by installing an active commercial network here in paradise of the metals orbits of the trade created by the Phoenicians and Greeks with the Iberian territories where the precious gold, silver, copper, tin, and zinc were mined and brought to Berber merchants, paying a high price products made of bronze and iron of use.

Moorish Conquest and Legacy

With the destruction of the Roman Empire by barbarian tribes, the territory of the future Algarve was part of the Visigothic kingdom. This period was characterized by protective defensive measures because of the attacks from Moors and the beginning of a migration of Jews.

The Visigothic Christian king, Witiza, ruled here. Witiza, probably due to internal disputes in the Visigothic kingdom, ceded the defense of the Algarve to a Moor who was his vassal. This Moor, when his sovereign fell by the power of the count of the Visigothic kingdom, rebelled and proclaimed himself an independent king of the Algarve. Some battles took place and in the end, the Moorish king was able to hold his kingdom. The Christian army returned to the north. In 713, the Algarve became part of the Umayyad Caliphate. This event, which lasted for five centuries, was apparently a gesture of the Berber king, who probably with the consent of the Visigothic Christian monarch, sought to preserve the entity of the Andalusian Kingdom from the threat of Moorish settlers coming from North Africa, in the region between the mountains of the Algarve, Beja, and Mertola, which offered natural protection. 

According to tradition, the Moors considered that this region was the last kingdom conquered and for this reason, they applied the term "Gharb Al-Andalus", or "Gharb" meaning last or western, which was transcribed by the Portuguese as "Al-Gharve", "Al-Garbe" or the popular "Algarve".

The legacy of the Moors is visible in monuments, gastronomy, and especially in the nomenclature (in settlement names see the syllable "Al-"), in crafts, and hydraulic engineering of Algarve. It must be recognized that the Muslims favored the development of the region in various aspects.

With the arrival of the North African Almu'tamid in what is now the city of Silves in 1027, the region experienced a new era of prosperity and Andalusian cultural splendor. However, periods of splendor were interspersed with moments of great political instability, leading fanatical opponents of Islamic culture, religion, and tradition to take advantage of the conflict fatigue prevalent in the Muslim population in order to incite insurrections, which, for reasons in some cases of social unrest, were rapidly repressed.

The Moorish caliphate, or the kingdom of the "Gharbe Arbe" or Al-Gharbe, extended its sovereignty to the north of the Tejo, south of Betice (Beja) and Al-Kultar (Alcacer do Sal). According to the pinnacle of the "Monte Velho Earth", the partial destruction of the Andalusian Kingdom, named Al-Garb or Al-Gharbe, by the Berber generals, was for the Andalusian what the fight against the succession of the king of the Rebeirao Sul, Beja, and Lagoa, as reigned Rebeirao Sul in the lands of the Biscaian-Laut-lauttente-Biscaian Vanos of the king of Biscaia-earth.

Portuguese Reconquest of the Algarve

The Reconquista refers to the period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula during which Christian kingdoms sought to reconquer territory from Muslim rule. The process of reconquest in Portugal began around the 8th century with the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and lasted until the 13th century.

One significant event in Portugal's Reconquista was the Battle of São Mamede in 1128, which marked the beginning of the Portuguese independence movement led by Afonso Henriques, who later became the first King of Portugal. Over the centuries, Portuguese forces gradually pushed southward, reclaiming territory from the Moors, culminating in the capture of the Algarve region in the far south in 1249.

By the end of the Middle Ages, with the conquest of Ceuta in 1415, the region became an area where Manuel I developed a policy of combining Christianity and Islam. In 1497, he reintegrated the Jews who had converted into the Portuguese bourgeoisie. A strategy to promote regional wealth through the expropriation of the Moors who lived in the region, where taxes were imposed on all family income. This policy continued during the reign of João III, who in Silves, built a castle with a chapel to encourage the conversion of the Moors.

Algarve and the Portuguese Discoveries

In the early 15th century, the beginning of the Portuguese maritime expansion brought a new lease of life to the Algarve and its people. Since then, Lagos and Sagres have remained forever linked to Prince Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese Discoveries. Even today, at the headland known as Ponta de Sagres, a giant stone finger can be seen pointing towards the Atlantic Ocean in a clear allusion to the courage of the Algarve navigators, such as Gil Eanes, who set sail across the seas in search of new worlds to give to the world.

One of King João’s sons, Prince Henry ‘the Navigator’ is famous for becoming the governor of the Algarve in 1418 and for his School of Navigation in Sagres, which delivered improvements in offshore navigation and led to the redesigning of the caravel to enable long ocean journeys. This period of sea voyage became known as the Portuguese Discoveries and the explorations led to the ‘discovery’ of Madeira, the Azores, Cape Verde, and West Africa as far as Sierra Leone.

History was again re-written in 1580 when King Philip II of Spain claimed the Portuguese throne and united the two kingdoms. The association with the Spanish led to attacks on the Algarve from Sir Francis Drake in 1587, during which the Prince Henry’s School of Navigation in Sagres was destroyed. Portuguese retaliation against the Spanish rule in the 1600’s restored Portuguese independence in 1640. This, however, was not the end of the troubles for Portugal or the Algarve. In 1755 Portugal was hit by an earthquake – Lisbon was destroyed along with much of the Algarve and Alentejo.

Lagos is one of the Algarve's most important historic points of interest. Its 17th century marine fortress once played a vital role in securing the Algarve from invaders, while those climbing the 182 steps to the Ponta da Piedade will be rewarded with a breath-taking view of the bay that launched the Age of Discoveries. Many centuries ago, daring voyages to the farthest flung parts of the world would have set sail from here into uncharted seas.

Modern Economic Development and Tourism

Over the decades since the 1940s, the Algarve has become overly dependent on tourism and services as a principal source of income, which nowadays represents more than 80% of the regional income. The Algarve counts with several tourism assets: the quality of the coastal environment and the good climate, tourist capacity and quality accommodation, several golf courses of international standards, a strong tradition of regional gastronomy, a rich cultural heritage, and quality tourist animation, as well as good communications and accessibility. Nevertheless, tourism has shown great seasonality, marked by the summer months, thus generating numerous problems in the economic and social life of the Algarve, including adaptation problems of that sector, requiring high investment to respond to the high demands imposed by tourism.

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