Fuseta

Fuseta or Fuzeta is a Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 parish, located in the municipality of Olhão

Olhão

Olhão , or Olhão da Restauração, is a city and a municipality in the Algarve region, in Southern Portugal. It is located near Faro, which is the district's capital and the capital of the Algarve. It is mostly a fishing port city...

 in the district of Faro

Faro (district)

Faro District is the southernmost district of Portugal, coincident with the Algarve. The administrative centre, or capital, is the city of Faro.-Municipalities:The district is composed of 16 municipalities:* Albufeira* Alcoutim* Aljezur* Castro Marim...

, which is located in the Sotavento

Sotavento

The Sotavento islands , is the southern island group of Cape Verde archipelago.There are four main islands: Brava, Fogo and Santiago are rocky and volcanic agricultural islands, with the longest histories of human inhabitance and densest populations in the Cape Verdes...

 region of the Algarve. Its area is 0.36 km² and it has 2146 inhabitants (2001), yielding a population density of 5961 inhab/km². This parish belonged to the county of Tavira until 1876.

Geography

With an area of 0.36 km², it is located on coast, bounded on the north by the town of Moncarapacho, on the south by the Ria Formosa

Ria Formosa

The Ria Formosa lagoon, located in Algarve, in southern Portugal, is a system of barrier islands that communicates with the sea through 6 inlets. Five of these inlets are natural and have mobility characteristics...

, on the east by the county of Tavira

Tavira

Tavira is a Portuguese city, situated at 37°07' north, 7°39' west in the east of the Algarve on the south coast of Portugal. It is 30 km east of Faro and 160 km west of Seville in Spain. The Gilão River meets the Atlantic Ocean in Tavira....

, and on the west by the parish of Moncarapacho

Moncarapacho

Moncarapacho is a freguesia in the municipality of Olhão ....

.

History

Fuseta, dating from 1572, was known as “Fozeta”, a diminutive of foz, “estuary, firth”, due to the small river named “river of the trunk” that flows into the sea there. The area, originally only a collection of small huts kept to store tools for fishing boats, had gradually developed and increased in population until by an early unknown date it became a small settlement.

Fuseta already appeared in the days of the Portuguese Discoveries, when the town’s fishermen shipped aboard the Caravelas. With Gaspar Corte-Real, noble resident of this area, they discovered Newfoundland in 1500. Perhaps because of this these were the first Portuguese to venture onto the seas in search of codfish.

The oldest church of Fuseta, the Chapel of Our Lady of Carmo, existed by 1758. As the population grew, the Bishop of the Algarve, D. Francisco Gomes de Avelar, was asked to confer independence on the parish, which had previously been included in Moncarapacho. Independence was granted on 12 March 1874.

The principal economic activity of Fuseta remains fishing and its derivatives, and there was a very brave and famous fisherman named Joaquim de Jesus Dias "The Canilha" that saved many fishermans. Recently the tourism industry has been growing, due to the beautiful beach, the camping park, and the proximity of the island of Armona-Fuseta. The town is known for its quaint houses of cubical form, with their terraces and curious chimneys, a trademark of this part of the Algarve.