Calheta

Calheta may refer to the following places:

Cape Verde

Portugal

In the archipelago of the Azores:

In the archipelago of Madeira:

Portuguese language

Portuguese (português or, in full, língua portuguesa) is a Romance language and the sole official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese and Portuguese creole speakers are also found in Goa, Daman and Diu in India; in Batticaloa on the east coast of Sri Lanka; in the Indonesian island of Flores; and in Malacca in Malaysia.

Portuguese is a part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia. With approximately 215 to 220 million native speakers and 260 million total speakers, Portuguese is usually listed as the fifth most natively spoken language in the world, the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers, and a major language of the Southern Hemisphere. It is also the most spoken language in South America and the second-most spoken in Latin America after Spanish, and is an official language of the European Union, Mercosul and the African Union.

Calheta, Madeira

Calheta (Portuguese pronunciation: [kɐˈʎetɐ]) is a municipality on the southwest coast of Madeira, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 11,521, in an area of 111.50 km².

History

The origin of the areas name, are both related to the toponymy of Calheta (which means "small bay" in Portuguese): first, that there existed a small bay or cove, which already had this name, but secondly, that the area of the settlement was the off-port for sugar and collection of wood. Calheta was founded in 1430; the parish, of the same name (which is the central part of the municipality) is one of the oldest parishes on the island of Madeira, and one of the first to be explored by the early settlers. It was the area selected by João Gonçalves Zarco (the island's discoverer) as a grant to his son and his wife, João Gonçalves da Câmara and Beatriz Gonçalves.

The village became a town 72 years after its foundation, on 1 July 1502, after a royal foral (charter) was granted by King Manuel I. The region was primarily settled by noblemen and knights, influencing the toponomic names that appeared in many of its localities: such as Lombo do Doutor and Lombo do Atouguia. In 1502, João de França constructed the Chapel of Nossa Senhora da Graça (English: Our Lady of Grace), which was to be the basis for the new parish of Calheta, founding the first and oldest institutions of the parish. Similarly, the Santa Casa da Misericórdia was established in 1535, to serve the elderly and provide healthcare for the local residents.