Azores and Madeira

Two island groups in the Atlantic

The Azores are nine volcanic islands in the middle of the North Atlantic, strung along about 600 km from Santa Maria to Corvo. They cover 2,325 km² and lie 1,600 km from the European mainland and 2,454 km from Canada.^[4] Madeira is a volcanic group some 800 km off the African coast. Of its islands, Madeira, Porto Santo, the Desertas and the Selvagens, only the first two are lived on; Madeira itself is 55 km long.^[5] Its laurel forest, the Laurisilva, is the largest surviving area of a forest type now found only in the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands.^[10]

Empty islands, Portuguese settlers

In 1418 a storm blew João Gonçalves Zarco off his course along the African coast to an island he named Porto Santo. A year later another island was sighted and named Madeira, “wood”, for its plentiful timber.^[11] Nobody lived there, and settlers arrived from 1420.^[5] The Madeira 600 years commission puts the start of the settlement cycle in 1425, by order of King João I; in 1440 the islands were split into three captaincies, Porto Santo, Machico and Funchal.^[11]

Who first reached the Azores is unknown: Diogo de Silves in 1427 or Gonçalo Velho Cabral in 1431. Prince Henry the Navigator had animals put ashore in 1431–32 and sent settlers from 1439.^[4] These islands were empty too.^[12] Settlement went on through the 15th century in the eastern and central islands and the 16th in the western ones, and mainland Portuguese were joined by Jews and settlers from the Maghreb, Flanders, Genoa, England, France and Africa.^[4] Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira became a city on 21 August 1534 and was a required stop for fleets sailing between Europe, Africa and the Indies until the age of steamships.^[13]

From revolution to autonomy

On 25 April 1974 the Armed Forces Movement overthrew Portugal’s dictatorship.^[1] On 6 June 1975 about 10,000 people, in a demonstration organised by farmers, marched in Ponta Delgada. The protest became linked with Azorean independence, prompted the resignation of the civil governor, Borges Coutinho, and led to several people being jailed without charge.^[14] A regional administrative board for the Azores followed on 22 August 1975. The historian Avelino Meneses calls the 6 June protest the “main cause” of Azorean autonomy, and says that without separatist pressure from the Azores Liberation Front (FLA), neither archipelago would have won such wide self-rule. Declassified US documents show that Washington weighed backing Azorean independence in 1975.^[15]

The Constituent Assembly approved the articles on the two regions on 25 March 1976.^[16] It passed the whole Constitution on 2 April, and it came into force on 25 April 1976.^[1] A provisional statute for the Azores was published on 30 April, and the first regional elections were held in both archipelagos on 27 June 1976, the same day Portugal elected Ramalho Eanes president.^[6] The PPD won both: 29 of 41 seats in Madeira and 27 of 43 in the Azores.^[17] Madeira’s assembly held its first plenary on 19 July, chaired by Emanuel Rodrigues.^[18] The Azores assembly met for a preliminary sitting on 20 July and was formally opened on 4 September.^[19][6] The first Azorean government, under João Bosco Mota Amaral, took office on 8 September 1976.^[15]

How the autonomy works

The Constitution names the Azores and Madeira as autonomous regions with their own political and administrative statutes. Each statute is drafted by the regional parliament and passed by the national one in Lisbon.^[1] Each region has an elected Legislative Assembly and a Regional Government answerable to it. It can make laws on matters its statute lists, so long as they are not reserved for the national state.^[1] The Azores statute dates from 5 August 1980 and was revised in 1987, 1998 and 2009.^[6] It puts the parliament in Horta on Faial, and spreads the government’s departments between Angra do Heroísmo, Horta and Ponta Delgada.^[2] Madeira’s parliament sits in Funchal.^[7]

Lisbon’s link to each region is the Representative of the Republic, appointed by Portugal’s president. The Representative names the regional president according to the election results, and signs regional laws or sends them back; the parliament can override a veto by an absolute majority.^[1] Until the 2004 revision of the Constitution the post was called Minister of the Republic.^[6]

“The grounds for the specific political and administrative regime of the Azores and Madeira archipelagos are their geographic, economic, social and cultural characteristics and the island populations’ historic aspirations to autonomy.”^[1]

Inside the EU, and an American base

The EU counts the Azores and Madeira among its nine outermost regions, remote territories that get special treatment under Article 349 of the EU treaty.^[8] Unlike Spain’s Canary Islands, both are fully inside the EU’s customs, VAT and excise rules.^[9] Portugal’s Constitution itself tells the state to take account of the islands’ “ultraperipheral” nature.^[1]

On Terceira, the Lajes air base has long served as a transit point for US forces under a 1951 treaty between Portugal and the United States. In February 2026, as US aircraft passed through in larger numbers, Portugal’s foreign minister said that use needed no permission from Lisbon.^[20] UNESCO lists three sites in the islands: central Angra do Heroísmo, damaged by an earthquake in 1980, since 1983;^[13] Madeira’s Laurisilva since 1999;^[10] and Pico’s walled vineyards, begun in the 15th century, since 2004.^[21]