Minho is a historic province in the northern region of Portugal, which was
part of the former province Entre Douro e Minho and which was formally
confirmed by an administrative reform in 1936. It comprises the Baixo Minho
and Alto Minho regions. However, the provinces never had a practical
attribution, therefore they disappeared from the administrative vocabulary
(although not from the daily vocabulary of the Portuguese) with the entry
into force of the 1976 Constitution, passing the region, in this case
inserted in the so-called Northern Region, with its sub-regions of Cávado,
Ave and Minho-Lima.
It is from this Minho region that most of the
Portuguese who colonized Brazil from the 18th century onwards emerged.
Amares
Barcelos
Braga
Caminha
Castro Laboreiro
Esposende
Lindoso
Melgaço
Monção
Mujães
Ponte de Lima
Soajo
Valença
Viana do Castelo
Vieira do Minho
Vila Nova de
Cerveira
Peneda-Gerês National Park
North Coast Natural Park
Cabeceiras de Basto - A beautiful village in the interior of the county, whose main monument is the Monastery of Refojos de Basto, with an amazing main altar with 18th-century gilded carving, which also serves as the Town Hall. Another point of interest is the Basto - a very old statue, in castrejo style.
It was limited to the north and northeast by Galicia,
Spain (by the provinces of Pontevedra and Ourense, respectively), to the
east by Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, to the south by the Douro Litoral
and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean.
It was made up of
twenty-three councils, comprising all of the districts of Braga and
Viana do Castelo. It had its headquarters in the city of Braga.
If the province in question still existed, it would probably have
twenty-four municipalities, since a new municipality had been created in
the meantime in the district of Braga: Vizela (in 1998, following the
secession of Guimarães).
For some geographers, this province -
together with the Douro Litoral - formed a larger geographical unit:
Between Douro and Minho. On the other hand, it could be divided into two
regions: Alto Minho (corresponding to the district of Viana do Castelo)
and Baixo Minho (corresponding to the district of Braga). Braga was the
capital of Entre Douro e Minho, and later of Minho, a fact documented by
several atlases and maps of the time, including the Historical Geography
of All Sovereign States of Europe of 1736, Atlas Historique by A. Lesage
of 1809 or the Geographical and Statistical Map of Spain and Portugal
from 1821.
Nowadays, its territory is found in the statistical
region of the North, spread over all the sub-regions of Minho-Lima and
Cávado, and partially by the sub-regions of Ave (municipalities of
Guimarães, Póvoa de Lanhoso, Vieira do Minho, Vila Nova de Famalicão and
Vizela) and Tâmega (two municipalities in Terras de Basto, namely
Cabeceiras and Celorico de Basto).