Machico (Portuguese pronunciation: [mɐˈʃiku]) is a city and municipality in the northeastern part of the island of Madeira, in the Autonomous Region of Madeira. The easternmost municipality on the island, it is also the third most populous area; its population was 21,747 (in 2001). The town, proper, had a population of just over 10,000 inhabitants.

"We saw a land covered in trees until the sea and from that band the fog never descended from the range...We saw a great bay..."

—Francisco Alcoforado, 15th Century chronicler

In calm waters of early after, on 1 July 1419, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira disembarked on the beach of Machico, beginning the era of Portuguese discoveries. On the beach a mass of thanksgiving was celebrated by Franciscan priests, in honour of the visitation of Saint Elizabeth (2 June), an image of which accompanied the expedition.

Many hypothesises have developed as to the origin of the name of the municipality. The most remembered, and not the least disputed, comes from the romanticized legend of the English lovers Robert Machim and Ana d´Arfet. As the legend explains, the two lovers escaped from England (where their love was forbidden and condemned by the Church), suffered the tragedy of a shipwreck and died on the island that became Madeira, where later the first Portuguese explorers encountered two crosses to which they attributed to the lovers: the name appears to be a corruption of the surname Machim.