Saturday 31st January, 2015. Funchal, Madeira (Ilha da Madeira) Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago located in the north Atlantic Ocean, just under 400 kilometres (250 mi) north of Tenerife, Canary Islands. The archipelago is one of the two Autonomous regions of Portugal (the other being the Azores, located to the northwest), and consists of 5 islands including the Madeira (the largest), Porto Santo, and the Desertas, administered together with the separate archipelago of the Savage Islands. It one of the outermost regions of the European Union. Madeira was claimed by Portuguese sailors in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator in 1419, and settled after 1420. The archipelago is considered to be the first territorial discovery of the exploratory period of the Portuguese Age of Discovery. Today, it is a popular year-round resort, being visited every
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