Azinhaga do Ribatejo or simply Azinhaga () is a village and a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Golegã Golegã () is a town and municipality in Santarém District, Portugal. The population of the municipality in 2011 was 5,913,including the parish Pombalinho, that changed from the municipality of Santarém to Golegã in 2013 in an area of 84.32 ...

Santarém District The District of Santarém ( ) is a district of Portugal, located in Portugal's West and Tagus Valley region. The district capital is the city of Santarém. The district is the 3rd largest in Portugal, with an area of , and a population of 475 ...

Lezíria do Tejo The Comunidade Intermunicipal da Lezíria do Tejo (; "Tagus Floodplain") is an administrative division in Portugal. It was established as an ''Associação de Municípios'' in 1987, converted into a ''Comunidade Urbana'' in 2003, and converted int ...

(roughly the same territory of the historical province of

Ribatejo The Ribatejo () is the most central of the traditional provinces of Portugal, with no coastline or border with Spain. The region is crossed by the Tagus river (''Ribatejo'' translates to "upper Tagus", or more precisely, "up the Tagus" relative ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. The population of Azinhaga civil parish in 2011 was 1,620,Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE)
Census 2011 results according to the 2013 administrative division of Portugal in an area of 38.21 km².

History

Azinhaga was the birthplace of the 1998

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

-winning author

José Saramago José de Sousa Saramago (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese writer. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which ...

(born in 1922) who in Memories of My Youth (first published in 2006) gave a detailed account in words of Azinhaga in the first half of the 20th century. In 1938, Azinhaga won the title of

's Most Portuguese Village, awarded by the Portuguese Secretariat for Propaganda under the Estado Novo regime (at the same government-sponsored competition, Monsanto (Idanha-a-Nova)">Monsanto, in Idanha-a-Nova, won the title of Portugal's Most Portuguese Village). From the mid-1940s to the 1980s, Azinhaga was the site of a nationally renowned tomato paste factory - the ''Sociedade Industrial de Concentrados'' (SIC). Like many other previously successful Portuguese exporters (i.e. Companhia União Fabril, CUF and others), it didn't survive the

far-left politics Far-left politics, also known as extreme left politics or left-wing extremism, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some ...

labor movement The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considere ...

-inspired PREC (1975) and its influence over Portuguese economy, society and government policies. In the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, Azinhaga benefited from

European Union Structural and Cohesion Funds The European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI Funds, ESIFs) are financial tools governed by a common rulebook, set up to implement the regional policy of the European Union, as well as the structural policy pillars of the Common Agricultura ...

. Several amenities were built, expanded or modernized during this period, from comprehensive asphalt road and sewer system, to new education and sports infrastructure.

Geography

The population of Azinhaga civil parish in 2011 was 1,620, in an area of 38.21 km². The village of Azinhaga is located along the right bank of the river Almonda which is itself near the right bank of the

Tagus River The Tagus ( ; ; ) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales between Cuenca and Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally westward, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Lisbon. Name T ...

, in a large

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

renowned for its high-yield

farmland Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with bot ...

. The village proper is about 18 to 20 meters high above sea level. Azinhaga is about 28 kilometers away by road from the district capital, the city of Santarém, and the seat of the

, the town of

, is about 8 kilometers to the northeast.

Economy

Besides a number of small retail stores and local shops, as well as

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

and

animal husbandry Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, animal fiber, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, management, production, nutrition, selective breeding, and the raising ...

-related activities, Azinhaga has municipal

swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming and associated activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built abo ...

tennis court A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the centre. The same surface can be used to play both Types of tennis match, doubles and singles matches. A variet ...

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

and

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

; the offices of Azinhaga civil parish local government (''

freguesia (), usually translated as "parish" or "civil parish", is the third-level administrative subdivision of Portugal, as defined by the 1976 Constitution. It is also the designation for local government jurisdictions in the former Portuguese over ...

'', the third layer of official administrative authority in Portugal), local state-run healthcare center of the Portuguese National Health Service; a local branch of the

Santa Casa da Misericórdia Santa Casa da Misericórdia is a charitable institution whose mission is to treat and support the sick, the disabled, and orphans. Founded in Lisbon in 1498 by Queen Leonor of Portugal, the institution grew into a network of charitable organizat ...

charity and the local branch of the José Saramago Foundation which has its headquarters based in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

and includes a library.José Saramago Foundation https://www.josesaramago.org/onde-estamos/ Azinhaga is served by the

train station A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing suc ...

of Mato de Miranda. The main agricultural productions are

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

and ''

Beta vulgaris ''Beta vulgaris'' (beet) is a species of flowering plant in the subfamily Betoideae of the family Amaranthaceae. Economically, it is the most important crop of the large order Caryophyllales. It has several cultivar groups: the sugar beet, of gre ...

''. It is in an area which is a reputed animal producing center and an internationally renowned

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are calle ...

and

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

market.

References

External links

Freguesia De Azinhaga
(Official)
Azinhaga.net
{{authority control Freguesias of Golegã