The Portuguese people (Portuguese: Portugueses – masculine – or Portuguesas) are a Romance-speaking ethnic group and nation indigenous to Portugal, a country in the west of the Iberian Peninsula in the south-west of Europe, who share a common culture, ancestry and language.
The political origin of the Portuguese state can be traced back to the founding of the County of Portugal in 868. However, it was not until the Battle of São Mamede (1128) that Portugal gained international recognition as a kingdom through the Treaty of Zamora and the papal bull Manifestis Probatum. This establishment of the Portuguese state in the 12th century paved the way for the Portuguese people to unite as a nation.
The Portuguese played an important role in sailing, and explored several distant lands previously unknown to Europeans in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania (southwest Pacific Ocean). In 1415, with the conquest of Ceuta, the Portuguese began to play a significant role in the Age of Discovery, which culminated in a colonial empire, considered as one of the first global empires and one of the world's major economic, political and military powers in the 15th and 16th centuries, with territories that are now part of numerous countries. Portugal helped to the subsequent domination of Western civilization by other neighboring European nations.
Due to the large historical extent from the 16th century of the Portuguese Empire and the subsequent colonization of territories in Asia, Africa and the Americas, as well as historical and recent emigration, Portuguese dispersed to different parts of the world.
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