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The District of Porto (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpoɾtu], Portuguese: Distrito do Porto), sometimes Oporto in English, is located on the north-west coast of Portugal. The district capital is the city of Porto, the second largest city in the country. It is bordered by the Aveiro and Viseu districts to the south, Braga district to the north and Vila Real district to the east. Its area is 2395 km² and its population is 1,781,826.

Portugal (ⁱ/ˈpɔrtʃʉɡəl/, POR-tshoo-gəl; Portuguese: Portugal, IPA: [puɾtuˈɣaɫ]), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa), is a country located in Southwestern Europe, on the Iberian Peninsula. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east. Apart from continental Portugal, the Portuguese Republic holds sovereignty over the Atlantic archipelagos of Azores and Madeira, which are autonomous regions of Portugal. The country is named after its second largest city, Porto, whose Latin name was Portus Cale.

Grande Porto or Greater Porto is a Portuguese NUTS3 subregion, integrating the NUTS2 region of Norte, in Portugal.

It corresponds to 11 municipalities out of 16, the other 5 in Entre Douro e Vouga Subregion that constitute the larger Greater Metropolitan Area of Porto, centered in the city of Porto. With a population of 1,401,805 inhabitants (INE 2011) and an area of 817 km². Highly industrialized, is, with the neighbouring subregions, the main source of the Portuguese exports and home to one of the busiest Portuguese harbours, located in Leixões. Grande Porto serves as the commercial, educational, political and economical centre of northern Portugal.

It covers an area of 817 km² for a density of 2056 hab/km²

It is formed by 11 municipalities, on both sides of the Douro River.

All of the above municipalities are cities. Only Espinho and Gaia are located south of Douro River.

The conurbation, which includes the municipalities of Porto (pop. 240,000), Vila Nova de Gaia (pop. 330,000) and Matosinhos (pop. 175,000), are amongst the biggest urban centres in Portugal, although the subregion is considered a Metropolitan Area with a population of over a million.

A seascape is a photograph, painting, or other work of art which depicts the sea, in other words an example of marine art. By a backwards development, the word has also come to mean the view of the sea itself, and be applied in planning contexts to geographical locations possessing a good view of the sea.

In the UK a seascape is defined in planning and land use contexts as a combination of adjacent land, coastline and sea within an area, defined by a mix of land-sea inter-visibility and coastal landscape character assessment, with major headlands forming division points between one seascape area and the next. This approach to coastal landscape planning was developed jointly by Government environmental bodies in Wales (UK) and Ireland in 2000 to assist spatial planning for (at that time new) offshore wind farm developments. The resulting "Guide to best practice in seascape assessment [1]", (Marine Institute, Ireland, 2001), have since been adapted and applied in Scotland [2](Scottish Natural Heritage, UK, 2004) and in England [3](Defra, 2005) and Wales[4] (Countryside Council for Wales, 2009) for guidance to offshore wind farm developers and for carrying out spatial planning assessments.

Vila Nova de Gaia Municipality is located in Porto District in Norte Region in Portugal. It contains the city of Vila Nova de Gaia.

The municipality contains 24 parishes with a total population of 288,749 inhabitants, and is the most populous municipality in Norte Region.

There are 24 parishes (freguesias) in Vila Nova de Gaia:

The most populous is Mafamude and the least is Sermonde, while the largest by area is Pedroso and the smallest is São Pedro da Afurada. In terms of populational density, the most dense is Mafamude and the least dense is Sandim.

Europe (ⁱ/ˈjʊərəp/ EWR-əp or /ˈjɜrəp/ YUR-əp) is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting the Black and Aegean Seas.

A shore or shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past and present, while the beach is at the edge of the shore, representing the intertidal zone where there is one. In contrast to a coast, a shore can border any body of water, while the coast must border an ocean; that is, a coast is a type of shore. The word shore is often substituted for coast where an oceanic shore is meant.

Shores are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape, as well as by water induced erosion, such as waves. The geological composition of rock and soil dictates the type of shore which is created.

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres (41,100,000 sq mi), it covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the "Sea of Atlas".

The oldest known mention of "Atlantic" is in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC (Hdt. 1.202.4): Atlantis thalassa (Greek: Ἀτλαντὶς θάλασσα; English: Sea of Atlas). The term Ethiopic Ocean, derived from Ethiopia, was applied to the southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century. Before Europeans discovered other oceans, the term "ocean" itself was synonymous with the waters beyond the Strait of Gibraltar that we now know as the Atlantic. The early Greeks believed this ocean to be a gigantic river encircling the world.

The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. As one component of the interconnected global ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean (which is sometimes considered a sea of the Atlantic), to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south. (Other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica.) The equator subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean.

Costa Verde (English: Green Coast) is a touristic and coastal region of northwest Portugal.

The name of the region comes from the dominant colour of the dense vegetation of the land, the green (Verde in Portuguese), supported by abundant precipitation. Climate is classified as Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb). As a result, its climate shares many characteristics with coastal southwestern Portugal: warm, dry summers and mild rainy winters.

In the coast, along with Porto there are cities and towns with a strong tradition on beach tourism, and in fisheries, most notably Espinho and Póvoa de Varzim, both cities have popular casinos, hotels and golf courses. Others relevant coastal towns, with less urban development, include Esposende, Viana do Castelo, Vila do Conde, and Caminha. Several beaches in these municipalities are worth of note, such as Moledo, Apúlia, Fão and Vila Praia de Âncora. Porto area includes Matosinhos, Maia, and Vila Nova de Gaia which are relevant urban destinations.

Inland towns had a growing popularity recently, mostly due to historical importance, namely Braga, Guimarães and, occasionally, also Barcelos and Amarante.

A place of worship is a specially designed structure or consecrated space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is sometimes called a house of worship. Temples, churches, and mosques are examples of structures created for worship. A monastery, particularly for Buddhists, may serve both to house those belonging to religious orders and as a place of worship for visitors. Natural or topographical features may also serve as places of worship, and are considered holy or sacrosanct in some religions; the rituals associated with the Ganges river are an example in Hinduism.

Under International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions, religious buildings are offered special protection, similar to the protection guaranteed hospitals displaying the Red Cross or Red Crescent. These international laws of war bar firing upon or from a religious building.

Religious architecture expresses the religious beliefs, aesthetic choices, and economic and technological capacity of those who create or adapt it, and thus places of worship show great variety depending on time and place.

Miramar is a small seaside village near the towns of Gulpilhares and Arcozelo, in municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia, in the subregion of Greater Porto, Portugal (Grande Porto).

It is an upmarket residential area south of thr river Douro, most known for its beach - Praia de Miramar (Miramar Beach) and the small chapel called Senhor da Pedra (Lord of Stone), which forms the central attraction of a yearly festival. This chapel is also featured in the film clip "San Simon", directed by Richard Tomes with music by the Pikoul Sisters. Indeed, Miramar is home to a number of artists and intellectuals, including Marina Pikoul, David Wyn Lloyd, Lars Wessman and Diane Braz, amongst others. There are many large houses and mansions in Miramar,as well in the nearby Praia de Aguda and Praia da Granja. Along the beach there are several cafés (esplanadas). Despite its pleasant location, Miramar is not an international tourist destination. However, during the warm summer months many Portuguese people from the surrounding areas of Porto,Gaia and Espinho spend their days at the beach of Miramar, and also at neighbouring beaches of Costa Verde.

Along the beach of Miramar there is a small 9-hole golf course called Club de Golf de Miramar.

Portugal attracts many tourists each year. In 2006, the country was visited by 12.8 million tourists. Tourism is playing an increasingly important role in Portugal's economy contributing about 5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The main tourist areas are, by order of importance, the Greater Lisbon (Lisboa), the Algarve, Greater Porto and Northern Portugal (Porto e Norte), Portuguese Islands (Ilhas Portuguesas: Madeira and Azores), and Alentejo.

Lisbon is, after Barcelona, the European city attracting most tourists, with 7 million tourists sleeping in the city's hotels in 2006, the number grew 11.8% compared to previous year. Lisbon in recent years surpassed the Algarve as the leading tourist region in Portugal. Porto and Northern Portugal, especially the urban areas north of Douro River, was the tourist destination which grew most (11.9%) in 2006 and surpassed Madeira, in 2010, as the third most visited destination. Today, most tourists in Portugal are British, Spanish or German, travel in low cost airliners, and are not only in search of the beach and the sun, but mostly searching culture, city breaks, gastronomy, nautical tourism or travel in business.

A sea is a large body of saline water that may be connected with an ocean or may be a large saline lake that, like the Caspian Sea, lacks a natural outlet. Sometimes the terms sea and ocean are used synonymously.

Frozen salt water is transformed into "sea ice"; this occurs below the freezing point of pure water—at about −1.8 °C (28.8 °F).

A coastline or seashore is the area where land meets the sea or ocean. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the dynamic nature of tides. The term "coastal zone" can be used instead, which is a spatial zone where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs. Both the terms coast and coastal are often used to describe a geographic location or region; for example, New Zealand's West Coast, or the East and West Coasts of the United States.

A pelagic coast refers to a coast which fronts the open ocean, as opposed to a more sheltered coast in a gulf or bay. A shore, on the other hand, can refer to parts of the land which adjoin any large body of water, including oceans (sea shore) and lakes (lake shore). Similarly, the somewhat related term "bank" refers to the land alongside or sloping down to a river (riverbank) or to a body of water smaller than a lake. "Bank" is also used in some parts of the world to refer to an artificial ridge of earth intended to retain the water of a river or pond; in other places this may be called a levee.

While many scientific experts might agree on a common definition of the term "coast", the delineation of the extents of a coast differ according to jurisdiction, with many scientific and government authorities in various countries differing for economic and social policy reasons.

Portugal is a coastal nation in southwestern Europe, located at the western end of the Iberian Peninsula, bordering Spain (on its northern and eastern frontiers: a total of 1,214 km (754 mi)). Portuguese territory also includes a series of archipelagoes in the Atlantic Ocean (the Azores and Madeira), which are strategic islands along western sea approaches to the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Sea. In total, the country occupies an area of 92,090 km² (35,560 sq mi) of which 91,470 km² (35,320 sq mi) is land and 620 km² (240 sq mi) water.

Despite these definitions, Portugal's border with Spain remains an unresolved territorial dispute between the two countries. Portugal does not recognise the border between Caia and Cuncos River deltas, since the beginning of the 1801 occupation of Olivenza by Spain. This territory, though under de facto Spanish occupation, remains a de jure part of Portugal, consequently no border is henceforth recognised in this area.

The term southern Europe, at different times, has had different meanings, providing additional political, linguistic and cultural context to the definition in addition to the typical geographical, phytogeographic or climatic approach. Most coastal countries in the United Nations-designated southern Europe border the Mediterranean Sea. Exceptions are Portugal which has only Atlantic coastline, Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia, which are landlocked, and Bulgaria, which borders the Black Sea.

The European Union primarily occupies a large portion of western and central Europe, covering 4,422,773 km² (1,707,642 sq mi). Its European territory extends northeast to Finland, northwest to Ireland, southeast to Cyprus and southwest to Iberia. It represents the seventh largest territory in the world by area.

Including all overseas territories the EU shares borders with 19 countries.

Douro Litoral (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈdowɾu lituˈɾaɫ]) is a historical province of Portugal. It is centered on the city of Porto, now the capital of the Norte Region. Other important cities in the province are Vila Nova de Gaia, Matosinhos, Maia, Póvoa de Varzim, and the historically important Penafiel, Amarante, Feira, Vila do Conde.

The province was abolished in an administrative reform in 1976. Nowaday Douro Litoral is divided between Greater Porto Subregion, Tâmega Subregion, and parts of Ave Subregion and Entre Douro e Vouga Subregion.

The coast is part of the Costa Verde tourist area.