Porto Santo Island is a Portuguese island 50 km northeast of Madeira Island in the North Atlantic Ocean. Administratively, it is part of theAutonomous Region of Madeira.

The main urban area in which is one of the five Portuguese municipalities that have only one parish is the city of Porto Santo, also known as Vila Baleira. The population in 2001 was 4,474. The density was 106.1/km². The island also has an airport which serves flights to Funchal, which is only a 15-minute flight away. It is the northernmost and the easternmost island of the Madeira Archipelago. The municipality has no land boundaries and is encircled by the Atlantic Ocean. The nearest place is Machico in the island of Madeira to the southwest which serves as its port to Funchal. The length of the island is about 9 km. The main industry is tourism.

The island's geography includes farmlands in the southern and central parts and further to the south a long shoreline with a few beaches, forests and grasslands to the west, rocky ledges and cliffs with a longer coastline to its north, forests to the northeast, drylands with grasses to the northern part and mountains along the northeastern part with about five to six main mountaintops with a few grasslands. Much of the coastline is to the west, the north and the east. There are islets to the north east and a small peninsula with a mountaintop in the eastern end of the main island. Porto Santo has about 9 km of sandy beaches while Madeira island has virtually none, with tiny exceptions such as Calheta.

History

The official discovery of Porto Santo occurred in 1418, with the trip of the knights of Prince Henry,João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, in accordance with the orders of king D. John I.

Its captain-donee was Bartolomeu Perestrelo, that received letter of donation in November of 1445. The name of Porto Santo (Holy Port) was given, originally to the bay that, in the south coast, served of shelter when the navigators had been gathered by a storm.

In the first centuries of settling, the development of this place knew some difficulties due to scarcity of water and to the assaults of Algerian and French pirates.