Odiáxere () is a town and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the municipality of

Lagos Lagos ( ; ), or Lagos City, is a large metropolitan city in southwestern Nigeria. With an upper population estimated above 21 million dwellers, it is the largest city in Nigeria, the most populous urban area on the African continent, and on ...

, Portugal. The population in 2021 was 3,046, up from 2,984 in 2011,Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE)
Census 2011 results according to the 2013 administrative division of Portugal in an area of 31.85 km².

History

Odiáxere, which is famous for its menhir (''Menir de Odiáxere'') measuring about 7 ft. in height in the garden of ''Quinta Menir'', was the site of a prehistoric settlement going back to the

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

period. The current version of Odiáxere probably dates back to the Moorish period, on which today's town center was built after the

Reconquista The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...

. The place name, derived from the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Odi (for river) is a further indication of its Arabic origin. In the 16th century, Odiáxere became an independent municipality. On 1 July 2003, it was granted the status of a small town (Vila).

Transport

Odiáxere was connected to the Portuguese railway network via a halting place of

Linha do Algarve Linha do Algarve is a Rail transport, railway line in the region of Algarve, in southern Portugal, which connects the stations of Lagos railway station, Lagos to the west and Vila Real de Santo António railway station, Vila Real de Santo Ant ...

railway line, which was located outside the core of the town and closed down in 2003. Odiáxere is a street settlement directly on the narrow town through-road of EN125, via which the town is connected to junction 2 (Odiáxere) of the A22 motorway. Local public transport is operated here by the municipal bus company ONDA of the city of Lagos. Two local bus lines, Lines 3 (Rosa) and 8 (Lilas), serve the town of Odiáxere. Various long-distance busses, e.g. to Lisbon,

Albufeira Albufeira (, ), officially the City of Albufeira (), is a List of cities in Portugal, city and Concelho, municipality of Faro District in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. The population in 2021 was 44,158, in an area of . The city proper ...

and Faro stop in Odiáxere as well.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Odiaxere Parishes of Lagos, Portugal Towns in Portugal