The Azores archipelago is an Autonomous Region of the Portuguese Republic, located in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s composed of 9 volcanic islands which rise up from a vast, shallow submarine area – the Azores platform – and extend along a 615 km axis in a WNW-ESE direction, across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and at a distance of 1,937 km from the European continent. Pico is the southernmost island in the central group and the second largest in the archipelago as a whole, with a surface area of 444.8 km2. The Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture, was classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, since 2004.
This landscape is characterised by vineyards planted into a network of black stonewalls (locally called currais) along the coast, reflecting the historical and cultural development of 5 centuries of human occupation of an isolated territory packed with physical and natural constraints that led the population to develop processes to adapt to the environment. Due to the land’s unsuitability for cereal cultivation, settlers on Pico planted the vineyards on the lava fields and arranged stones to form currais in order to protect the vineyards from the strong winds and seawater spray.
The Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture occupies an area of 3,291.7 ha.
