Porto Santo

Porto Santo island discovered in early 14th century, is located 43 kilometres (27 mi) northeast of Madeira Island in the North Atlantic Ocean. It belongs to the most iconic Portuguese natural heritage spots and has its own unique local world. This section of How to Porto Santo provides geographic, cultural, touristic and modern life overview capturing all you need to know about Porto Santo prior and while staying here. For curious minds out there, we provide our collection of historic and modern stories around Porto Santo.

5 346
population in 2022

6%
expats in 2022

42.17 km²
island size

2 190 h
average annual sunshine

Facts about Porto Santo

These are our top 10 facts about Porto Santo you should know prior to coming to the island. We prepared a vivid mix of culture, history and food mix that will prepare you for what is about to follow when you visit our beautiful island.

Discovery at sea is Porto Santo DNA

Porto Santo has preserved its sea DNA from the time of its discovery in early 14th century to the present day. It is a place where Columbus had spent his days preparing for his great discoveries, including the discovery of the American continent in 1992.The biggest threat of invasion Porto Santo has ever had was from pirates. They sailed through the windy cold waters of the Atlantic ocean and attempted to conquer the island multiple times luckily without success. Nowadays Porto Santo is heavily dependent on the sea for tourism, fishing, cargo and passenger transportation. People enjoy sea activities such as sailing, kayaking, diving. Water activity and transportation is dependent on seasonal schedules and the winds direction and strength of which change rapidly.

The smallest inhabited island in Madeira region

Let's get the regional nomenclature straight: Madeira is an autonomous region of Portugal and an archipelago comprising 4 islands off the northwest coast of Africa: two inhabited islands, Madeira and Porto Santo, and two uninhabited island groups, the Desertas (EN - Deserted) and the Selvagens (EN - Wild). Porto Santo is the smallest of the two inhabited islands forming Madeira archipelago. Porto Santo has strong logistic, political and economic ties with Madeira Island. Porto Santese have a rather friendly relationship with fellow islanders, however, they have to sometimes battle for their rights to fresh products, medicine, equal representation on political and army / maritim police avenue. Needless to say, Madeira acts like a focal point in government elections since its population is way bigger than Porto Santo, outnumbering any alternative choice that Porto Santese might consider taking. Many Madeirans enjoy beach holidays and own holiday homes at Porto Santo while Porto Santese decide to move seasonally or permanently to obtain education and get diverse work opportunities on Madeira island with high concentration of activity in the central district of Madeira Island called Funchal area.

Recent urbanisation & tourism boom

Did you know that Porto Santo was officially granted a status of a city in 1996? The fist hotel built at the island in 1979 still operates today , it is called Porto Santo SPA. The first commercial plane started in the 60s and first version of the runway was constructed in 1959, interestingly earlier than Madeira Airport of the fellow big island brother of Porto Santo. Given the recent tourism boom, Porto Santo has enormous seasonality with over 60 000 people roaming it city center during August and under 6 000 people remaining at Porto Santo during quiet months of January - February.

Bolo de Caco birthplace

This mouthwatering flatbread has become international must-try over the years, but few people know that it originally comes from Porto Santo. Bolo do caco is typically accompanied by a mixture of butter, garlic and parsley. It is also often used as a main dish, for example, with hamburgers, sword fillet, octopus and other recipes. In the past, bolo do caco was cooked on top of a basalt stone over scorching embers. This stone was called “caco”, which gave this flatbread its now famous name “bolo do caco”.

Renewable, smart and clean island

Porto Santo is a fairly remote island, making it difficult to import products and electricity from neighbouring Madeira or the European Continent / Continental Portugal. Although share of renewable energy in 2022 slightly surpassed 15%, Porto Santo is expected to make over half of its energy using renewable energy sources by latest in 2030. The island's authorities support eco-friendly initiatives and windmill landscape became part of Porto Santo panorama. The island is a part of EU and local Madeira initiatives: a) When you pass by the port towards north of the island there are huge pipes with algae called Central do Porto Santo - that was an attempt in scope of EU backed initiative to process biomass of local algae plants into energy; b) Madeiran government prompted at new plant construction completion in 2024 where Serra de Água Hydroelectric Power Plant located at Madeira will a.o. provide Porto Santo with clean electricity.

Porto Santo island is working towards creating emission free smart island considering Porto Santo based photovoltaics, wind power, electric vehicles, biomass processed into energy and second-life batteries as durable options for local energy consumption.

Golden beach sand's local origin

While sand at the beaches of Madeira island is imported from the other continent, Golden beach sand takes its origin from Porto Santo, making the pleasure of walking and dipping your feet into this amazingly soft sand even more satisfying. The name of the beach takes after its sand's magic yellow colour reminding gold sparkling in the Porto Santese sunshine. There are several beaches along the coastline comprising golden sand beachline: Pedras Pretas, Praia do Ribeiro Salgado, Ponta da Calheta beaches just to name a few.

Rabbits dominate the island

If you come to our island closer to September, you most likely would be surprised by the rabbit population roaming around the roads, sands and forests of Porto Santo. The story goes long into the discovery of the island and its first population of settlers arriving to live on the island. Apparently, the settlers brought crops and a rabbit mother, who was pregnant and gave birth to many baby rabbits. The rabbits were very hungry and ate all the crops, causing local settlers to panic as they turned out to be at the brink of starvation caused by rabbit's excessive eating of settler's future harvest. in 2023 we noticed a strange wave of disappearance of our rabbit population. We have two local versions of events: disease or people made poisoning. We sincerely hope that our rabbits return and rebuild their population at Porto Santo very soon. If you are lucky to see our fluffy grey friends, please make sure to let us know and be gentle with these fascinating and friendly creatures.

Majority of jobs are from government

You might think that tourism with its fancy hotels and gastronomy leisure complexes gives most of the jobs to the local population, but you would be wrong. Governmental support of job market is substantial with local talents partaking in over 80% of the local job market including government-backed ecology-related initiatives, development of the urban infrastructure as well as job posts in conventional services provided by the local city hall "Câmara Municipal do Porto Santo" and cultural center of the local congress "Centro Cultural de Congressos do Porto Santo".

Is there a hospital at Porto Santo?

Growing up without a fully fledged hospital at home is fully normal to Porto Santese whose local medical treatment happens at Madeira and direction to relevant examination is possible through visiting doctor once a month or at urgent case or ambulatory emergency station in the center of the city called "Centro de Saúde do Porto Santo Dr. Francisco Rodrigues Jardim". Urgent cases can be flown with priority over commercial aircrafts with a military plane or helicopter. We also see local supportive medical and care practitioners - dentists who can take care of your teeth, physiotherapists to give you a massage , so it is not like you have zero medicine at all. Moreover, there is a new Local Health Unit being rapidly built that will not only have examination and operating equipment and personnel, but also teaching and academic facilities to prepare local staff for taking on duty across various spectrum of medical services and care.

Local hospitality law

How to make sure you pay due respect to local population and get accepted into the local circles? Our unspoken hospitality rule is: the first round of drinks goes on locals as a sign of welcoming newly arrived tourists or expats, meaning that the next one should be paid by tourist or expat. Of course, no one will tell you directly, but knowing this rule you can pay back the hospitality and show respect for the local culture also impressing the locals.