Portugal has a population of around 10 million on the mainland, with another 600,000 or so on Madeira and the Azores. It's one of Europe's smaller nations by population, but Portuguese is spoken by roughly 250 million people worldwide — a legacy of the empire that once stretched from Brazil to Mozambique to Goa.
The Portuguese tend toward reserve with strangers but warmth once acquainted. Saudade — a word without a perfect translation, somewhere between longing, nostalgia, and melancholy — is a recurring theme in culture, expressed most fully in fado music. Don't take it for sadness; it's more a deep emotional attentiveness to life.
Immigration has shifted the cultural mix considerably, particularly in Lisbon and Porto, where communities from Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, and Ukraine are substantial. Lisbon's Mouraria neighborhood, historically associated with fado's origins, has become one of Europe's more genuinely diverse urban spaces.
Portugal is predominantly Roman Catholic, though practicing numbers have fallen in recent generations. Religious festivals — particularly Holy Week, the festas dos santos populares in June, and local patron saint days — remain central to community life even among people who don't attend mass regularly.
The country has also become a destination for remote workers and retirees from Northern Europe and North America, drawn by the relatively low cost of living, good infrastructure, and the climate. This has reshaped neighborhoods in Lisbon and Porto and driven up housing costs, which is a source of tension with locals.