ONE LAND · 11 ATLASES
History of Portugal in maps
Portugal as it appears in 11 interactive history atlases, from 264 BC to 2015: Lusitania, Portugal — the western Reconquista, Portugal. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.
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What was Portugal before it was Portugal? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History atlases — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.
Lusitania (mod. Portugal) · Ancient Rome
Lusitania. Its shepherd-general Viriathus humiliated Roman armies for a decade until Rome bought his assassination in 139 BC — a conquest by treachery Romans themselves told with embarrassment (“Rome does not pay traitors,” the consul allegedly told the assassins, after paying them). Augustus organized the province around Emerita Augusta (Mérida, founded 25 BC for discharged veterans), whose theatre, bridge and aqueduct still stand — provincial Rome at nearly metropolitan scale. Sueves seized the north after 409; the south passed to the Visigoths; and the province’s Latin, worked on by both, became Portuguese.
| 264 BC | Tribal peoples & confederations — the opening position |
| 133 BC | Roman territory |
| Breakaway Roman empires (260–274) | |
| Roman territory | |
| Former Roman lands (lost) |
ANCIENT ROME: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Portugal · Norse and Aztecs
| Other peoples and states — the opening position |
NORSE AND AZTECS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Portugal — the western Reconquista · Crusades
Portugal was itself a child of the Reconquista, a new kingdom pushing south along the Atlantic. In 1147, English, Flemish and German crusaders bound for the Holy Land stopped to help take Lisbon from the Muslims — one of the only successes of the otherwise disastrous Second Crusade, and the making of the Portuguese capital.
| Latin Christendom — the opening position |
CRUSADES: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Portugal · Industrial Revolution
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Portugal · Age of Revolutions
Refused the Continental System, was invaded (1807), and watched its royal court sail to Brazil under British escort — the only European monarchy to reign from a colony. Wellington’s fortress (Torres Vedras) and Britain’s oldest ally, it emerged with a liberal constitution, civil wars, and the loss of Brazil (1822): a small country the age used as a hinge.
| The conservative monarchies — the opening position | |
| Britain & its empire | |
| The conservative monarchies |
AGE OF REVOLUTIONS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Portugal · WWI
| The Entente & Allies — the opening position | |
| The Entente & Allies | |
| The Entente & Allies |
Portugal · Road to WW2
| Neutral & unaligned — the opening position |
ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Portugal · WW2
Portugal · Cold War
| NATO & core Western allies — the opening position |
COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Portugal · Feminism and the Tunisian Revolution
| Partial or unequal; treaty signed only; transition — the opening position | |
| Right won in law | |
| No reform yet / outside this story | |
| Right won in law |
FEMINISM AND THE TUNISIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Portugal · Refugee crises
| Western bloc or democracy — the opening position | |
| Western bloc or democracy |
REFUGEE CRISES: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
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