Overseas province ( pt, província ultramarina) was a designation used by

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

for its overseas possessions, located outside Europe.

History

In the early the 19th century, Portuguese overseas territories were referred to as "overseas dominions", but administrative reforms made the term "overseas provinces" begin to be used. That was in keeping with the idea of

pluricontinentalism Pluricontinentalism ( pt, Pluricontinentalismo) was a geopolitical concept, positing that Portugal was a transcontinental country and a unitary nation-state consisting of continental Portugal and its overseas provinces. With origins as early as ...

, or the idea that Portugal existed as a

transcontinental country This is a list of countries with territory that straddles more than one continent, known as transcontinental states or intercontinental states. Contiguous transcontinental countries are states that have one continuous or immediately-adjacent ...

and that its territories were integral to the Portuguese state. Overseas possessions had already been seen as an element of Portuguese identity. Although administratively classified as an overseas province, Portugal's possessions in India retained the honorary title of "state". By the 20th century, most of these territories were referred to as "colonies", but the term "overseas province" continued to be the official designation. The

Portuguese Colonial Act The Portuguese Colonial Act was adopted in 1930, and affected Portuguese India, sanctioning legal discrimination and differentiating them from the metropolitan Portuguese people. Adopted at the behest of António de Oliveira Salazar , then the M ...

- passed on 13 June 1933 as one of the fundamental statutes of the Estado Novo regime led by Salazar – eliminated "overseas province" as the official designation of the territories and fully replaced it by that of "colony". The colonies of Angola and Mozambique were themselves subdivided in provinces. The name was made official in 1951 as part of the policy of Salazar's government to retain the remaining colonies and to appease anticolonial demands from the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

. Meanwhile, in 1970, the provinces of Angola and Mozambique received each one the honorary title of "state". The following territories were then reclassified: *

Portuguese Angola Portuguese Angola refers to Angola during the historic period when it was a territory under Portuguese rule in southwestern Africa. In the same context, it was known until 1951 as Portuguese West Africa (officially the State of West Africa). I ...

Portuguese Cape Verde Cape Verde was a colony of the Portuguese Empire from the initial settlement of the Cape Verde Islands in 1462 until the independence of Cape Verde in 1975. History 15th century The islands of Cape Verde was discovered in 1444 by Dom Prin ...

Portuguese Guinea Portuguese Guinea ( pt, Guiné), called the Overseas Province of Guinea from 1951 until 1972 and then State of Guinea from 1972 until 1974, was a West African colony of Portugal from 1588 until 10 September 1974, when it gained independence as G ...

Portuguese Macau Portuguese Macau (officially the Province of Macau until 1976, and then the Autonomous Region of Macau from 1976 to 1999) was a Portuguese colony that existed from the first official Portuguese settlement in 1557 to the end of colonial rul ...

Portuguese Mozambique Portuguese Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique) or Portuguese East Africa (''África Oriental Portuguesa'') were the common terms by which Mozambique was designated during the period in which it was a Portuguese colony. Portuguese Mozambique originally ...

Portuguese São Tomé and Príncipe São Tomé and Príncipe islands were a colony of the Portuguese Empire from its discovery in 1470 until 1975, when independence was granted by Portugal. History The Portuguese explorers João de Santarém and Pêro Escobar discovered the is ...

Portuguese Timor Portuguese Timor ( pt, Timor Português) was a colonial possession of Portugal that existed between 1702 and 1975. During most of this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Dutch East Indies. The first Europeans to arrive in th ...

State of India India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-indepen ...

The classification lasted until the 1974

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...

, which led to the fall of the Estado Novo regime, the rapid decolonisation of Portuguese Africa and the annexation of Portuguese Timor by

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

. In 1976, the territory of

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

was recognized as the "Chinese territory under Portuguese administration" and was granted more administrative, financial and economic autonomy. Three years later, Portugal and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

agreed to rename Macau once again as a "Chinese territory under (temporary) Portuguese administration". That classification lasted until the Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau and transfer of sovereignty of Macau from Portugal to the People's Republic of China in 1999.

References

Portuguese Empire Former provinces of Portugal {{Portugal-hist-stub

History

See also

References