The Islands

Terceira

São Miguel is the largest and highly populated of the islands with over 50% of the Azores' 250,000 inhabitants living here. As such it is also the transport and communications centre of the Azores with the archipelago's main airport located outside the capital, Ponta Delgada.

Rising straight out of the Atlantic Ocean around 1,500Km off the coast of mainland portugal is the Azores (Açores) archipelago. Volcanic in origin the chain stretches nearly 600 Km and comprises of nine significant islands and eight smaller islets known locally as formigas (ants!).

The archipelago of Madeira is situated in the Atlantic Ocean 535 miles southwest of Lisbon and 490 miles off the coast of Morocco in Africa. Madeira consists of 3 main islands, of which two are inhabited. These are Madeira Island and Porto Santo with the other island being appropriately named Ilhas Desertas (deserted island).

The population of the islands is around 250,000 with around 4,800 living on Porto Santo and the rest on Madeira Island.