Serra do Bouro

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Serra do Bouro Parish coat of arms
Municipality	Caldas da Rainha
Area	18.2 km²
Population  - Total  - Density	720 (2001) 39.5/km²
Website:

Serra do Bouro is one of the sixteen civil parishes (freguesias) that make up the municipality (município or concelho) of Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. The parish has an area of 18.2 km² and 720 residents ^[1]. It the least populous freguesia of the municipality.

Localities within Serra do Bouro include Espinheira, Cidade, Casais da Cidade, Boavista, Casais da Boavista, Casais dos Antunes, Cabeço da Vela and Zambujeiro. Serra do Bouro has cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Principal activities of the inhabitants include agriculture and civil construction.

Serra do Bouro once belonged to the municipality of Óbidos, but the freguesia was transferred to Caldas da Rainha as this latter municipality developed economically. Two other freguesias of Caldas da Rainha were once part of Serra do Bouro, but were elevated to the status of freguesia themselves: Foz do Arelho in 1919 and Nadadouro in 1957.

[edit] History

The area of Serra, as the locals know it, was first inhabited by the Veiga family in the 16th century. This freguesia changed little throughout much time. Electricity and municipal water reached Serra in the 1980s.

Throughout the 1900s most of the area's inhabitants emigrated to other countries, particularly to the United States. One of the greatest concentrations of Serra do Bouro descendants is in the area of Perth Amboy, New Jersey (sister city to Caldas da Rainha).

Serra has a cemetery called the "Cemitério dos Ingleses" (English Cemetery) where remains of two children and 6 women are buried from the October 28, 1892 shipwreck of the S.S. Roumania, an English ship.

[edit] References

1. ^ Portugal: Retrato Territorial: Caldas da Rainha from the Instituto Nacional de Estatística (free login required)