The Portuguese ( ) are an ethnic group or nation native to the country of Portugal, in the far west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Portuguese is the native language of most Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion.

Due to the large historical extent of the Portuguese Empire and the colonization of territories in Africa, Asia and the Americas, as well as historical and recent emigration, Portuguese communities can be found in many diverse regions, and a large Portuguese diaspora exists.

General traits

Modern Portuguese are an Iberian ethnic group and their ancestry is very similar to other western and southern European peoples, particularly from Spain, with whom it shares ancestry and has some cultural proximity. It is largely consistent with the geographic position of the western part of the Iberian peninsula, located on the extreme southwest of continental Europe. There are clear connections with Atlantic and Western Europe as well as parts of the Mediterranean. Dark to medium brown hair and brown and hazel eyes predominate in a majority of Portuguese people, however, blond hair and blue or green eyes are also found with some regular frequency. Chestnut and auburn colored hair types occur generally. Light, true red hair (meaning red shades that are non-auburn) is seen on occasion.

Ancestry

Historical origins

The Portuguese are a southwestern European population, with origins predominantly from Atlantic Europe, Western Europe and the Mediterranean.

The earliest modern humans inhabiting Portugal are believed to have been Paleolithic peoples that may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000-40,000 years ago. Current interpretation of Y-chromosome and mtDNA data suggests that modern-day Portuguese traces largely a significant amount of these lineages to the paleolithic peoples which began arriving to the European continent between the end of the last glaciation around 45,000 years ago.

Northern Iberia is believed to have been a major Ice-age refuge from which Paleolithic humans later colonized Europe. Migrations from what is now Northern Iberia during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic, links modern Iberians to the populations of much of Western Europe and particularly the British Isles and Atlantic Europe. Recent books published by geneticists Bryan Sykes, Stephen Oppenheimer and Spencer Wells have argued the large Paleolithic and Mesolithic Iberian influence in the modern day Irish, Welsh and Scottish gene-pool as well as parts of the English. Indeed, Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b (of Paleolithic origin) is the most common haplogroup in practically all of the Iberian peninsula and western Europe. Within the R1b haplogroup there are modal haplotypes. One of the best-characterized of these haplotypes is the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH). This haplotype reaches the highest frequencies in the Iberian Peninsula and in the British Isles. In Portugal it reaches 33% generally and higher than 90% in some of the northern regions of the country.

The Neolithic colonization of Europe from Western Asia and the Middle East beginning around 10,000 years ago reached Iberia, as most of the rest of the continent although, according to the demic diffusion model, its impact was most in the southern and eastern regions of the European continent.

Starting in the 3rd millennium BC as well as in the Bronze Age, the first wave of migrations into Iberia of speakers of Indo-European languages occurred. These were later (7th and 5th Centuries BC) followed by others that can be identified as Celts.

Eventually urban cultures developed in southern Iberia, such as Tartessos, influenced by the Phoenician colonization of coastal Mediterranean Iberia, with strong competition from the Greek colonization.

These two processes defined Iberia's, and Portugal's, cultural landscape - Mediterranean towards the southeast and a Continental in the northwest, as historian José Mattoso describes it.Given the origins from Paleolithic and Neolithic settlers as well as Indo-European migrations, one can say that the Portuguese ethnic origin is mainly a mixture of pre-Roman Pre-Indo-Europeans (such as, in other parts of Iberia, the Iberians, Tartessians and Aquitanians), Pre-Celtic, Proto-Celtic and Celtic peoples, producing peoples such as the Lusitanians of Lusitania, the Calaicians or Gallaeci of Gallaecia, the Celtici and the Cynetes of the Alentejo and the Algarve.

The Romans were an important influence on Portuguese culture, considering the Portuguese language itself derives from Latin.

Other influences included the Phoenicians/Carthaginians (small semi-permanent commercial coastal establishments in the south before 200 BC), the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) and the Sarmatian Alans (both migrated to North Africa, while some were partially integrated by the Visigoths and Suevi), and the Visigoths and Suevi (including the Buri, permanently established in the early 5th century), along with, in the period of the Al-Andalus, numbers of Arabs and Berbers, Saqaliba (people of Slavic origin) and Jews who also settled in what is today Portuguese territory.

For the Y-chromosome and MtDNA lineages of the Portuguese and other peoples see this map and this one.

Other historical influences

General

The ancestry of modern Portuguese has been influenced by the many people which have passed on its territory throughout history. These people include the Pre-Indo-European of Iberia, Proto-Celts and Celts (such as the Lusitanians, Calaicians, Celtici, Cynetes and other Pre-Roman People of the Iberian Peninsula, such as other minor local tribes as the Bracari, Coelerni, Equaesi, Grovii, Interamici, Leuni, Luanqui, Limici, Narbasi, Nemetati, Paesuri, Quaquerni, Seurbi, Tamagani, Tapoli, Turduli, Turduli Veteres, Turdulorum Oppida, Turodi and Zoelae), Phoenicians (Punics), Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Suebi, Visigoths, Alans, Buri, Vikings, Byzantines, Saqaliba (Slavs), Berbers and Arabs (Moors), and Jews (Sephardim or Marranos).

Genetic impact of Muslim rule

There exists a number of studies which focus on the genetic impact of the eight centuries of Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula (al-Andalus) on the genetic make up of the Iberian population. Recent studies agree that there is some genetic relationship between some regions in Iberia and some North African populations as a result of this period of history. Iberia is the region in Europe which has the most significant presence of E-M81, U6 and Haplotype Va, although this influence may be the result of ancient demic processes that predate the Islamic presence, and may constitute the result of some common western Mediterranean population background. In Portugal, North Africans Y-DNA haplogroups (especially the typically North West African Y-chromosome haplotypes E-M81) are found at a total frequency of 7.1 %. Some mtDNA studies also found evidence of the characteristic North African haplogroup U6 especially in northern Portugal. Although the absolute frequency of U6 is low (4-6%), Gonzalez et al. 2003 estimated a possible North African ancestry proportion of 27% in North Portugal, because U6 is not a common lineage in North Africa itself.

Nevertheless, the North African and Arab element in modern day Iberian ancestry is exceedingly trivial when compared to the pre-Islamic ancestral basis, and the Gibraltar Strait seems to have functioned much more as a genetic barrier than a bridge.

Middle-Eastern genetic markers

According to a highly criticized recent study that was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in December 2008 by Adams et al., about 30 percent of modern Portuguese (23.6 in the north and 36.3 in the south) have DNA reflecting what can be a male Sephardic Jewish ancestry and about 14 % (11.8 in the north and 16.1% in the south) have a probable Moorish ancestry. Despite alternative possible sources for lineages ascribed a Sephardic Jewish origin, these proportions attest to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced), driven by historical episodes of social and religious intolerance, that ultimately led to the integration of descendants. In agreement with the historical record, analysis of haplotype sharing and diversity within specific haplogroups suggests that the Sephardic Jewish component is more ancient than the Moorish one.

Sub-Saharan genetic markers

Portugal is also the region in Europe with the highest frequency of the female mediated mtDNA haplogroup L of Sub-Saharan origin, possibly a result of Berber and Arab colonization or slave trade. In 2003, a study by Brehm at al. which analysed 525 Portuguese individuals reported mtDNA L haplogroups at 11.8% in the south, 8.1% in the center, 3.3% in the north and also found a significant Sub-Saharan imprint in the Autonomous regions of Portugal, with L haplogroups constituting about 13% of the lineages in Madeira and 3.4 % in the Azores<.REF> In a 2005 study by Pereira et al. that analysed 549 Portuguese individuals, sub-Saharan mtDNA L haplogroups were found at rates of 11.38% in the south, 5.02% in the center and 3.21% in the north. However, there has ben extensive debate on wether or not samplings in these two studies were actually truly representative of Portugal's native origin population. Y-DNA Sub-Saharan haplogroups are practically non-existent. In a 2006 study by Beleza et al. using 663 individual samples only 0.3% of Sub-Saharan Y-DNA was detected overall.

Demography

Demographics of Portugal

There are around 10 to 10.2 million native Portuguese in Portugal, out of a total population of 10.75 million (estimate).

Native minority languages in Portugal

A small minority of about 15,000 speak the Mirandese language, close to Leonese in the municipalities of Miranda do Douro, Vimioso and Mogadouro - even if all of the speakers are bilingual with Portuguese.

An even smaller minority of no more than 2,000 people speak Barranquenho, a dialect of Portuguese heavily influenced by Extremaduran, spoken in the Portuguese town of Barrancos (in the border between Extremadura and Andalusia, in Spain, and Portugal).

Ethnic minorities in Portugal

People from the former colonies (namely Brazil, Africa - Afro-Portuguese, and parts of India) have, in the last two to three decades, migrated to Portugal. More recently, a great number of Slavs, especially Ukrainians (now the third biggest ethnic minority ), are also migrating to Portugal. There is also a small Chinese minority.

In addition, there is a small minority of Gypsies (Ciganos) of about 40,000 people and an even smaller minority of Jews of about 5,000 persons (some Ashkenazi, the majority Sephardi, such as the Belmonte Jews).

The Portuguese diaspora

Country	Total
Total	5,485,373
Europe	1,806,292
France	798,837
United Kingdom	500,000
Germany	170,000
Switzerland	152,826
Spain	126,651
Luxembourg	54,490
Belgium	38,000
Rest of Europe	28,422
Americas	3,281,853
United States	1,471,549
Brazil	???
Venezuela	550,000
Canada	415,000
Guyana	50,000
Bermuda	2,400
Rest of the Americas	24,776
Africa	731,228
South Africa	300,000
Angola	367,908
Mozambique	54,355
Rest of Africa	8,965
Asia	30,000
Oceania	56,000

In the whole world there are easily more than one hundred million people with recognizable Portuguese ancestors, due to the colonial expansion and worldwide immigration of Portuguese from the 16th century onwards to India, the Americas, Macau and East-Timor, Malaysia, Indonesia and Africa. Between 1886 and 1966, Portugal lost to emigration more than any West European country except Ireland. From the middle of the 19th century to the late 1950s, nearly two million Portuguese left Europe to live in Brazil and the United States. About 40 million Brazilians have relatively recent Portuguese background, due to massive immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. About 1.2 million Brazilian citizens are native Portuguese. Significant verified Portuguese minorities exist in: (see table)

Portuguese Sephardic Jews (mostly descendants) are also important in Israel, the Netherlands, the United States, France, Venezuela, Brazil and Turkey.

In the United States, there are Portuguese communities in New Jersey, the New England states, and California. In the Pacific, Hawaii has a sizable Portuguese element that goes back 150 years (see Portuguese Americans and Luso Americans). Canada, particularly Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, has developed a significant Portuguese community since 1940 (see Portuguese Canadians). Argentina (See Portuguese Argentine) and Uruguay had Portuguese immigration in the early 20th century. Portuguese fishermen, farmers and laborers dispersed across the Caribbean, especially Bermuda (3.75% to 10% of the population), Guyana (4.3% of the population in 1891), Trinidad and the island of Barbados where there is high influence from the Portuguese community.

In the early twentieth century the Portuguese government encouraged white emigration to Angola and Mozambique, and by the 1970s, there were up to 1 million Portuguese settlers living in their overseas African provinces. An estimated 800,000 Portuguese returned to Portugal as the country's African possessions gained independence in 1975, after the Carnation Revolution, while others moved to Brazil and south to South Africa.

As of 1989, some 4,000,000 Portuguese were living abroad, mainly in France, Germany, Brazil, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Venezuela, and the United States.

Portuguese constitute 13% of the population of Luxembourg. In 2006 there were estimates to be over half a million people of Portuguese origin in the United Kingdom (see Portuguese in the United Kingdom), this is considerably larger than the around 50,000 Portuguese born people alone residing in the country in 2001 (however this figure doesn't include British born people of Portuguese descent). In areas such as Thetford and the crown dependencies of Jersey and Guernsey, the Portuguese form the largest ethnic minority groups at 30% of the population, 20% and 3% respectively. The British capital London is home to the largest number of Portuguese people in the UK, with the majority being found in Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth and Westminster.

As a result of interracial marriage and cultural influence, there are Portuguese influenced people with their own culture and Portuguese based dialects in parts of the world other than former Portuguese colonies, most notably in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia (see Kristang people), Barbados, Aruba, Curaçao, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana (see Portuguese immigrants in Guyana), Equatorial Guinea and Sri Lanka (see Burgher people and Portuguese Burghers).

Portuguese ancestry in the Brazilian population

Portuguese immigration to Brazil from the beginning of colonization, in 1500, until present day in 1990 Source: Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE)
	Decade
Nationality	1500-1700	1701-1760	1808-1817	1827-1829	1837-1841	1856-1857	1881-1900	1901-1930	1931-1950	1951-1960	1961-1967	1981-1991
Portuguese	100,000	600,000	24,000	2,004	629	16,108	316,204	754,147	148,699	235,635	54,767	4,605

The Portuguese were the largest European immigrant population in Brazil. In colonial times, around 500,000 Portuguese settled in Brazil. They managed to be the only significant European population to populate the country during colonization. The Portuguese immigration was strongly marked by the predominance of men (colonial reports from the 16th and 17th centuries almost always report the absence or rarity of Portuguese women). The multiplication of descendants of Portuguese settlers happened through miscegenation with Black and Indian women. In fact, in colonial Brazil the Portuguese men competed for the women, because even among the African slaves the female component was a minority. This explains why the Portuguese men left more descendants in Brazil than the Amerindian or African men did. The Indian and African women were "dominated" by the Portuguese men, preventing men of color to find partners with whom they could have children. Added to this, the "White" people had a better quality of life and therefore a lower mortality rate than the Black and indigenous population. Then, even though the Portuguese immigration during colonial Brazil was small (5 million Indians estimated at the beginning of colonization and 3 to 6 million Africans brought since then, compared to 500,000 Portuguese) the "White" population (which was mostly mixed) was as large as the Black population in the early 19th century.

After independence from Portugal in 1822, around 1.7 million Portuguese settled in Brazil. Portuguese immigration to Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries was marked by its concentration in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The immigrants went mostly to urban centers (which made them different from other immigrants in Brazil, who were attracted to rural areas of the country). Portuguese women appeared with some regularity among immigrants, with percentage variation in different decades and regions of the country. However, even among the more recent influx of Portuguese immigrants in the turn of the 19th century, there was a prevalence of 80% of men among them. The Portuguese were different from other immigrants in Brazil, like the Germans, or Italians who brought many women along with them (even though the proportion of men was higher in any immigrant community). Despite the small female proportion, Portuguese men married mainly Portuguese women. Female immigrants rarely married Brazilian men. In this context, the Portuguese had a rate of endogamy which was higher than any other European immigrant community, and behind only the Japanese among all immigrants.

Even with Portuguese heritage, many Portuguese-Brazilians identify themselves as being simply Brazilians, since Portuguese culture was a dominant cultural influence in the formation of Brazil (like many British Americans in the United States who will never describe themselves as of British extraction, but only as "Americans").

In 1872, there were 3.7 million Whites in Brazil (the vast majority of them of Portuguese ancestry), 4.1 million mixed-race people (mostly of Portuguese-African-Native American ancestry) and 1.9 million Blacks. These numbers give the percentage of 80% of people with total or partial Portuguese ancestry in Brazil in the 1870s.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a new large wave of immigrants from Portugal arrived. From 1881 to 1991, over 1.5 million Portuguese immigrated to Brazil. In 1906, for example, there were 133,393 Portuguese-born people living in Rio de Janeiro, comprising 16% of the city's population. Rio is, still today, considered the largest "Portuguese city" outside of Portugal itself.

Genetic studies also confirm the strong Portuguese racial influence in Brazilians. According to a study, at least half of the Brazilian population's Y Chromosome comes from Portugal. Black Brazilians have an average of 48% non-African genes, most of them may come from Portuguese ancestors.

It was estimated that around 5 million Brazilians can acquire Portuguese citizenship, due to the last Portuguese nationality law that grants citizenship to grandchildren of Portuguese nationals.

See also

• Genetic history of Europe
• European ethnic groups
• Romance languages
• Portuguese Africans
  • Portuguese Angolans
  • Portuguese Mozambicans
  • Portuguese-South Africans
• Portuguese-Brazilians
• Portuguese Luxembourger
• Portuguese of Black African ancestry
• Portuguese British
• Portuguese Americans
• Portuguese Canadians
• Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel

References

1. http://www.arkeotavira.com/Mapas/Iberia/Populi.htm
2. Mattoso, José (dir.), História de Portugal. Primeiro Volume: Antes de Portugal, Lisboa, Círculo de Leitores, 1992. (in Portuguese).
3. Charis Dunn-Chan , Portugal sees integration progress, BBC
4. http://www.sef.pt/portal/v10/PT/aspx/estatisticas/index.aspx?id_linha=4224&menu_position=4142#0
5. European Roma Rights Centre
6. Instituto Nacional de Estadística National Institute of Statistics (Spain).
7. Portuguese in the US statistics U.S. Census Bureau
8. There are no official figures about how many Brazilians have Portuguese roots. This is mainly because the immigration to Brazil from Portugal is very old, making it almost impossible to find correct numbers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Brazilians#How_many_Brazilians_have_Portuguese_ancestry.3F for more information.
9. PRODUCTO online 247: De padres inmigrantes
10. Joshua project country profile - Bermuda Ethnic groups - Bermuda
11. Angola: History, Geography, Government, and Culture Infoplease.com
12. Mozambique: History, Geography, Government, and Culture Infoplease.com
13. Portugal - Emigration
14. Portugal Seeks Balance of Emigration, Immigration
15. Recently Portuguese Immigrants in Brazil
16. Direcção Geral dos Assuntos Consulares e Comunidades Portuguesas do Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros (1999), Dados Estatísticos sobre as Comunidades Portuguesas, IC/CP - DGACCP/DAX/DID - Maio 1999.
17. Portuguese Jews in Brazil - in Portuguese
18. BERMUDA
19. Portuguese emigration from Madeira to British Guiana
20. The Portuguese in Trinidad and Tobago
21. The Portuguese of the West Indies
22. Portugal - Emigration, Eric Solsten, ed. Portugal: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1993.
23. Dismantling the Portuguese Empire, Time Magazine (Monday, Jul. 07, 1975)
24. Portugal Migration, The Encyclopedia of the Nations
25. RIBEIRO, Darcy. O Povo Brasileiro, Companhia de Bolso, fourth reprint, 2008 (2008).
26. A Integração social e económica dos emigrantes portugueses no Brasil
27. [ich.unito.com.br/materia/resource/download/41917 Retrato Molecular- Genética]
28. Do outro lado do Atlântico: um século de imigração italiana no Brasil
29. A integração social e económica dos imigrantes portugueses no Brasil nos finais do século xix e no século xx
30. Evolution of Brazilian population according to "colour" (Evolução da população brasileira segundo a cor), in Reis, J.J., "Presença Negra: conflitos e encontros", in Brasil: 500 anos de povoamento, 2000, Rio de Janeiro, IBGE - Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, p. 94.
31. Venâncio, R.P., "Presença portuguesa: de colonizadores a imigrantes", in Brasil 500 anos, 2000, Rio de Janeiro, IBGE - Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.
32. Carvalho, R., Pelos mesmos direitos do imigrante, 2003, Observatório da Imprensa from the State University of Campinas (Brazil).
33. Cinco milhões de netos de emigrantes podem tornar-se portugueses

External links

• Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC)
• Portugal (Emigration) from CIA Country Studies Series