World Heritage Identification Number: 1117
World Heritage since: 2004
Category: Cultural Heritage
Transboundary Heritage: No
Endangered Heritage: No
Country: 🇵🇹 Portugal
Continent: Europe
UNESCO World Region: Europe and North America
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The Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture: A Unique Cultural Landscape in the Azores Archipelago
The Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, offers a unique insight into the rich cultural history of the Azores archipelago, located in the North Atlantic Ocean. This remarkable man-made landscape, covering an area of approximately 987 hectares, is situated on the volcanic island of Pico, the second largest island in the archipelago.
More to come…UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site
The 987-ha site on the volcanic island of Pico, the second largest in the Azores archipelago, consists of a remarkable pattern of spaced-out, long linear walls running inland from, and parallel to, the rocky shore. The walls were built to protect the thousands of small, contiguous, rectangular plots (currais) from wind and seawater. Evidence of this viniculture, whose origins date back to the 15th century, is manifest in the extraordinary assembly of the fields, in houses and early 19th-century manor houses, in wine-cellars, churches and ports. The extraordinarily beautiful man-made landscape of the site is the best remaining area of a once much more widespread practice.
UNESCO Justification of the World Heritage Site
Criteria (iii) and (v): The Pico Island landscape reflects a unique response to viniculture on a small volcanic island and one that has been evolving since the arrival of the first settlers in the 15th century. The extraordinarily beautiful man-made landscape of small, stone walled fields is testimony to generations of small-scale farmers who, in a hostile environment, created a sustainable living and much-prized wine.
Encyclopedia Record: Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture
The Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture is a Unesco World Heritage Site on Pico Island, part of the archipelago of the Azores, Portugal. The landscape is known for the network of basalt stone walls and vines planted in rectangular enclosures known as currais. Wine has been produced in the area since the late 15th century, and traditional techniques continue to be used.Additional Site Details
Area: 987 hectares
(v) — Outstanding example of traditional human settlement
Coordinates: 38.51344444 , -28.54116667
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© The original uploader was Ulrich Thumult at English Wikipedia. (Original text: Ulrich Thumult), CC BY-SA 2.0 Resized from original. (This derivative is under the same CC BY-SA license.)
