A country of one million people drew the map of the world's oceans. Portugal — small, poor, and perched on Europe's Atlantic edge — spent two centuries sailing where no European had sailed, and built the first empire on which the sun never set. It lasted 584 years: the longest-lived of all the European colonial empires.
Lisbon ★ Brazil Goa Malacca Macao Angola Greatest extent — stylized map 1415 Ceuta 1488 Good Hope 1510 Goa 1557 Macao 1822 Brazil independent 1999 Macao to China Rise · zenith · fall Portugal by the numbers Longest imperial run 584 years Portuguese speakers 260 million people By the numbers The rise It began in 1415 with the conquest of Ceuta in Morocco, and with a prince: Henry the Navigator, who sponsored voyages down the African coast from his base at Sagres. Year by year, Portuguese caravels pushed past the known world — past Cape Bojador in 1434, past the equator, down a coastline no European map had ever drawn — perfecting the ships, the sails, and the navigation as they went.
