Albufeira

The Romans called the settlement Baltum and farmed and traded around it, leaving traces of roads and bridges. After the Visigoths, Muslim forces from North Africa took the area early in the 8th century, and the town's name comes from their word al-Buħayra, "the lagoon", for the lagoon that formed in the lowlands. The Moors fortified it so strongly that it held out longer than most of their possessions in Portugal; Templar and Hospitaller knights failed to take it, and it fell only in 1249, after the capture of Faro, to the forces of Afonso III, who gave it to the Order of Aviz. King Manuel I granted it a charter on 20 August 1504.

Few Algarve towns suffered more from natural disaster. In the 1755 earthquake waves about 10 metres high swept over the lower town, and only 27 houses were left standing, all of them damaged; the parish church, a converted mosque where many people had taken shelter, collapsed and killed 227. In 1833, during the Liberal Wars, the absolutist guerrilla leader Remexido attacked the town and executed many of its inhabitants.

Fishing revived Albufeira in the 19th century, and in the early 20th century when fish and nuts were the main exports, five factories employed 700 to 800 people, mostly fishermen's wives. Between 1930 and 1960 many factories closed, the fleet shrank and the population fell by half. Tourism arrived in the 1960s and transformed the place: the town spread over the surrounding hills, became a city in 1986, and in 2025 was the most visited place in the Algarve by overnight stays and the second in Portugal.

Albufeira's culture is shaped by the meeting of an old fishing town with one of Portugal's largest tourist centres. The architecture mixes the Algarve's white, tiled houses on narrow streets with large modern hotels and apartment blocks, and the town has more foreign residents than any other city in Portugal. The fishermen's beach is still the centre of town life, and it hosts the big public celebrations — on New Year's Eve 2009–10 some 25,000 people gathered there for what Guinness recorded as the world's largest toast.

The calendar follows the church and the sea. Festivals honour Our Lady of Orada in mid-August and the Blessed Vicente of Albufeira in September; the city celebrates its charter on 20 August; Olhos de Água holds octopus and sardine festivals; and Guia, inland, has its chicken festival on the first weekend of August. The painter Samora Barros, from Albufeira, is remembered in the parish church, whose altarpiece he painted, and in the municipal gallery named after him in the old power station.

Sport has an international flavour. The local club, Imortal DC, plays football and basketball; many British football clubs have spent pre-season training camps in the town; and the Almond Blossom Cross Country, first run in 1977, brings international runners every March. At night the Strip in Areias de São João, with its bars and open-air clubs, is the best-known nightlife district in the Algarve.

The city proper had about 28,600 people at the 2021 census and the wider municipality about 44,000, spread over four parishes: Albufeira e Olhos de Água, Ferreiras, Guia and Paderne. In summer, and over Christmas and New Year, the number of people in the municipality is estimated to rise to around 300,000, and most of them arrive through Faro Airport.

Tourism and commerce are the economy. Hotels, apartments, restaurants, bars, golf courses and the marina provide much of the work, and the work rises and falls with the season. A small fleet of traditional boats still works from the fishing harbour beside the marina, sharing it with the boats that take visitors along the coast to the sea caves, and at Olhos de Água boats are still pulled up the beach slipway.

Residents live in the hills and suburbs behind the coast, in Ferreiras near the railway station and in the inland villages of Guia and Paderne, while the seafront and the old town are given over largely to visitors. In summer the town keeps late hours, with restaurants and bars busy well into the night; in winter many seasonal businesses close and the town becomes quiet, its streets used mainly by residents and long-stay visitors.

Albufeira eats from the sea. Cataplana, a well-known Algarve dish, takes its name from the hinged copper pan, shaped like two clamshells, in which it is cooked; the sealed pan steams the ingredients, and clams, prawns and pork are the most popular fillings, cooked with onion, peppers, tomato, garlic, olive oil and white wine. Caldeirada is a fishermen's stew of several kinds of fish and potatoes, which varies with the catch, and grilled sardines are a summer staple. Fish is far cheaper than shellfish such as prawns, lobster and crab.

Inland, Guia is known locally and nationally for its chicken piri-piri restaurants, and a chicken festival celebrates it each August. Dishes of salt cod, bacalhau, are common on menus throughout the town.

For produce, the municipal market near the bus station sells fish, fruit and vegetables and dried figs from local growers, and the fishermen's square at Olhos de Água has a small fish market of its own. The Algarve's sweets are made from figs, almonds and honey, and its regional spirit is medronho, a strong brandy distilled from the fruit of the strawberry tree in the hills. Along The Strip and in the newer districts, restaurants serve the food of the visitors' home countries as much as Portuguese cooking.