Why this site exists
Portugal has 3,092 parishes. Almost all of them have a four-line Wikipedia stub, an INE yearbook hidden behind tables, and maybe a 2000s-era municipal page with grainy photographs. Very little brings together — in one place — the patron saint, the altitude, the population and a description you can read on a coffee break.
Aldeias Portuguesas tries to be that place. It does not aim to replace Wikipedia or the official portals — it aims to be the first read, the one that makes you want to keep digging. Hence the editorial tone, hence the credited photographs, hence the interactive maps and the care taken with each heading.
How content is made
Each parish page is the result of a hybrid editorial pipeline: official data + automated research + LLM-assisted writing + human review. The full flow is described in Sources & Methodology; in short:
- Base data: population (INE Portugal), administrative division (DGAL), official coordinates and classified heritage (DGPC).
- Research: automated agents query public sources (INE, Turismo de Portugal, ICNF, IPMA, dados.gov.pt, GeoPortal) for each parish.
- Writing: language models produce a first draft from that data, in three languages (PT primary, EN and ES adapted).
- Review: automated validators flag clichés, invalid dates and problematic patterns. I review the flagged cases manually.
- Images: sourced from Flickr Commons (open licences) with human curation and an automated audit to drop photos that don't match the place.
The result is a directory that is factual at its base, editorial in tone, and honest about the margin of error. Articles have a visible publication date and are corrected when someone points out a mistake.
Editorial commitment
- Transparency: sources are always cited and the use of automation is openly acknowledged. See details.
- No hidden errors: when something goes wrong — a swapped photo, a stale statistic, a misplaced parish — I correct it and bump the modification date.
- Nothing is sold today: the site has no advertising and no active affiliate links at the time of writing. If that ever changes, it will be clearly labelled.
- No personal data: no login, no user tracking. Just aggregated, self-hosted analytics (Rybbit). See privacy policy.
- Free content: every parish page is accessible without registration or paywall.
Local reviewers
Some pages carry an additional human seal of approval from local reviewers — people with a real link to a specific district. Each reviewer reads individually the pages they are assigned and signs a written authorization for the use of their name, which then appears at the bottom of those pages only — never extrapolated to others. Contracts go through Workana and every authorization is on file.
- Bernardo Mendes · Coimbra, Portugal · 10 pages reviewed
Want to join as a local reviewer for your district? Write through the contact form.
Contact & corrections
Spotted a mistake? Have better information about a parish? Want me to add something? Use the contact form or reach me directly. Every legitimate correction is incorporated and the page records a new revision date.
For legal matters, see Legal terms and Privacy policy.