DOURO - Geography and history
Bounded to the east by the River Douro (here forming the frontier with Spain), to the north by the sub-region of Alto Tras-os-Montes, to the west by the sub-region of Tâmega and to the south by the Centro region of Portugal, Douro has an area of 4 112 km2, making it the second largest sub-region in the Norte. In 1995, about 32% of its area was wooded and 34% farmland.
The sub-region is profoundly rural, the main centre of population being the conurbation formed by Vila Real (46 300 inhabitants in 2000), Peso da Régua (21 567 inhabitants) and Lamego (30 164 inhabitants) at the western fringe of the Douro area.
Watercourses are plentiful and are dominated by the River Douro which, after forming the frontier with Spain, crosses the entire sub-region in an east-west direction, appearing in twelve of Douro's 19 municipalities. The steep-sided Douro valley forms the typical landscape of the area. Some of the major Douro tributaries are the Rivers Côa, Sabor, Tua, Pinhão and Corgo.
Sparse economic activity despite the production of port wine
This sub-region encompasses virtually the whole of the registered wine-growing region of Douro, which produces some famous table and dessert wines. Port wine, the region's world-famous export, owes its name to the fact that it was traditionally sold in Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia. Its vineyards, however, are in Douro, where wine-growing is one of the great assets of an otherwise severely depressed sub-region.
The population of Douro has declined constantly over the last years, loosing 5% of its population between 1995 and 2001. The population shows pronounced ageing: between the 1991 census and the end of 1995 the number of residents aged under 15 fell by 18%. Population density, undermined by years of isolation, is showing no signs of increasing. Two municipalities, Torre de Moncorvo and Freixo de Espada à Cinta, have fewer than 20 inhabitants per square kilometre on average.
Industrialisation is in its infancy and is centred on the beverages industry. Most production takes place in small units; there is no company in the sub-region which employs more than 500 persons.
The level of economic activity in Douro is the lowest of the sub-regions of the Norte. Only in Alto Tras-os-Montes is the activity rate of women under 25 lower than in Douro. The GDP per capita (PPP approach) was in 2000 the third lowest in the Norte and the fifth lowest in Portugal. The municipalities of Vila Real, Peso da Régua and Lamego nevertheless record a per capita GDP figures which are well above those in the rest of the sub-region. The primary sector is over represented in the Gross Value Added, as it had a share of 19% in 1999, while for Portugal it was only 3%. The secondary and tertiary sectors were both under the national figures with shares of respectively 20% and 62%.
Since the main towns in Douro are concentrated close to its western fringe, the rest of the territory remains largely untouched by the beneficial effects of their urban dynamics. There appears to be no network of medium-sized towns capable of fostering the development of the sub-region.
Demographic decline and internal asymmetry
Douro and Alto Trás-os-Montes are the two least-developed sub-regions of the Norte. The investment in access in recent years, such as improvements to the road network, has not yet had an appreciable effect on Douro's development. The lack of opportunities causes a high proportion of the population to abandon the sub-region and move elsewhere. The resident population of Douro fell by some 11 600 between 1995 and 2001. This was due chiefly to an almost permanently negative migration rate, but the natural population growth (the difference between live births and deaths) has likewise been negative since 1990. The birth rate lied at 10.4 per thousand in 2000. The mortality rate has varied in recent years between 11 per thousand and 12 per thousand and was at 11.8 in 2000. There is pronounced ageing of the Douro population, with the number of residents aged over 65 per 100 under-15s being 116 between in 2001.
In 1999 the economic structure of the sub-region was primarily agricultural, the primary sector accounting for 41% of jobs, against 11% at national level. The tertiary sector provided 45% of employment, which is 14 percentage points under the share observed in the whole Portugal: there are 23% in services of a predominantly social nature (public administration, education, health, personal services etc.), 15% in the distributive trades, hotels and restaurants and 5% in transport, communications, financial services, real estate and business services. Lastly, the secondary sector accounted for only 15% of jobs in Douro in 1999, less than half the share of this sector for the whole country: it consists in 12% in construction, only 7% in manufacturing and about 1 % in energy and water supply. This sectoral structure of employment in Douro gave it the second largest share of primary-sector jobs in the Norte region and the second smallest share of secondary sector jobs.
Overall, Douro has very few facilities compared with the rest of the Norte region, and those that exist tend to be concentrated at its western edge. The hotel network, for example, is restricted to the municipalities of Vila Real, Lamego and Mesão Frio. The three only hospitals and 73% of Douro's physicians are in Lamego, Vila Real and Peso da Régua. The only higher-education establishments are in Lamego and Vila Real. All this leaves the Douro sub-region profoundly deprived in terms of basic communal facilities. Again in the social sphere, Douro is one of the three sub-regions of the North whose only public cultural events are cinema sessions, the other two being Ave and Tâmega.
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