Hype for the Future 75K: The Outermost Regions of the European Union 🇪🇺

Introduction

Of the Overseas Territories of the sovereign states associated with the European Union (EU), only nine (9) territories are fully integrated within the economic partnership, while thirteen (13) additional territories are included in European Union sovereignty without integration.

Outermost Regions

The nine (9) regions fully integrated into the European Union despite relative distances are as follows:

• Azores Islands (Portugal)
• Canary Islands 🇮🇨 (Spain)
• Madeira (Portugal)
• Réunion 🇷🇪 (France)
• Mayotte 🇾🇹 (France)
• Saint-Martin (France)
• Guadeloupe 🇬🇵 (France)
• Martinique 🇲🇶 (France)
• French Guiana 🇬🇫 (France)

Hype for the Future 73B: European Subdivisions, Nation by Nation, with the United Kingdom Split (Part 1)

Introduction

The contents of this post intend specifically to represent the subdivisions of each European state, including the split countries of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Historic counties are to be preferred, if and when possible, but especially in the case of the British Isles.

Ireland 🇮🇪

• Munster
  • Kerry
  • Cork
  • Tipperary
  • Limerick
  • Waterford
  • Clare
• Leinster
  • Kilkenny
  • Wexford
  • Carlow
  • Wicklow
  • Offaly
  • Laois
  • Kildare
  • Dublin
  • Longford
  • Westmeath
  • Meath
• Connacht (Connaught)
  • Galway
  • Mayo
  • Sligo
  • Roscommon
  • Leitrim
• Ulster
  • Donegal
  • Cavan
  • Monaghan

Northern Ireland 🇬🇧

• Armagh
• Antrim
• Down
• Fermanagh
• Londonderry
• Tyrone

Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇬🇧

• Anglesey
• Caernarfonshire
• Denbighshire
• Flintshire
• Merioneth
• Montgomeryshire
• Cardiganshire (Ceredigion)
• Radnorshire
• Pembrokeshire
• Carmarthenshire
• Brecknockshire
• Glamorgan
• Monmouthshire (Gwent)

England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇬🇧

• Cornwall
• Devon
• Somerset
• Dorset
• Wiltshire
• Hampshire
• Surrey
• Kent
• Sussex
• Gloucestershire
• Oxfordshire
• Berkshire
• Buckinghamshire
• Bedfordshire
• Hertfordshire
• Middlesex
• Essex
• Suffolk
• Norfolk
• Herefordshire
• Worcestershire
• Warwickshire
• Northamptonshire
• Huntingdonshire
• Cambridgeshire
• Rutland
• Shropshire
• Cheshire
• Staffordshire
• Derbyshire
• Nottinghamshire
• Leicestershire
• Lincolnshire
• Cheshire
• Lancashire
• Yorkshire
• Westmorland
• Durham
• Cumberland
• Northumberland

Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇬🇧

• Wigtownshire
• Kirkcudbrightshire
• Dumfries-shire
• Ayrshire
• Renfrewshire
• Lanarkshire
• Roxburghshire
• Berwickshire
• Selkirkshire
• Peeblesshire
• West Lothian (Linlithgowshire)
• Midlothian
• East Lothian (Haddingtonshire)
• Buteshire
• Argyllshire
• Dumbarton
• Stirlingshire
• Clackmannanshire
• Kinross-shire
• Perthshire
• Fife
• Angus
• Kincardineshire
• Aberdeenshire
• Inverness-shire
• Nairnshire
• Morayshire
• Banffshire
• Ross-shire and Cromartyshire
• Sutherland
• Caithness
• Orkney
• Shetland

Other British 🇬🇧

• Jersey
• Guernsey
• Mann (Isle of Man)

Portugal 🇵🇹

• Faro
• Beja
• Setúbal
• Évora
• Lisboa
• Santarém
• Portalegre
• Leiria
• Coimbra
• Castelo Branco
• Aveiro
• Viseu
• Guarda
• Porto
• Braga
• Viana do Castelo
• Vila Real
• Bragança
• Azores
• Madeira

Spain 🇪🇸

• Galicia
• Principado de Asturias
• Castilla y León
• Cantabria
• País Vasco
• La Rioja
• Comunidad Foral de Navarra
• Aragón
• Cataluña
• Comunidad Valenciana
• Islas Baleares
• Comunidad de Madrid
• Castilla-La Mancha
• Extremadura
• Andalucía
• Región de Murcia
• Ceuta
• Melilla

France 🇫🇷

• Occitanie
• Nouvelle-Aquitaine
• Pays de la Loire
• Bretagne
• Normandy
• Centre-Val de Loire
• Île-de-France
• Hauts-de-France
• Grand Est
• Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
• Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
• Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur
• Corsica

Italy 🇮🇹

• Sardegna
• Liguria
• Piemonte (Piedmont)
• Valle d’Aosta
• Lombardia
• Trentino-Alto Adige
• Veneto
• Friuli-Venezia Giulia
• Emilia-Romagna
• Toscana
• Umbria
• Marche
• Lazio
• Abruzzo
• Molise
• Campania
• Apulia
• Basilicata
• Calabria
• Sicily

Romania 🇷🇴

• Constanța
• Tulcea
• Călărași
• Ialomița
• București (Bucharest)
• Ilfov
• Giurgiu
• Teleorman
• Olt
• Dolj
• Mehedinți
• Caraș-Severin
• Timiș
• Arad
• Bihor
• Satu Mare
• Sălaj
• Cluj
• Maramureș
• Bistrița-Năsăud
• Mureș
• Harghita
• Suceava
• Botoșani
• Neamț
• Iași
• Bacău
• Vaslui
• Galați
• Brăila
• Buzău
• Vrancea
• Prahova
• Dâmbovița
• Covasna
• Brașov
• Argeș
• Sibiu
• Vâlcea
• Gorj
• Hunedoara
• Alba

Hype for the Future 52N: Portugal, the Beginning of Europe

Background

Portugal 🇵🇹 is the westernmost country in the European mainland, even further west than the western extent of Galicia within neighboring Spain 🇪🇸. While both share the Iberian Peninsula and possibly with the Pyrenees of Andorra 🇦🇩 occasionally included, the cultural traits of each nation are quite distinct, not just across borders, but often internally so as well. For Portugal, the southern part of the nation is quite far from the vast majority of the Portuguese population, and the same is generally true regarding Spain. However, the Portuguese culture relies on proximity to the ocean, whereas the Spanish culture often does not.

Cultural Influences

Though both Portugal and Spain have Mediterranean climate areas within the Iberian Peninsula, Spain extends into a mostly semi-arid region on the European continent and contains the driest areas within the entire continent. While common wisdom may suggest that no such desert exists in Europe, a small section located in Spain may be considered desert in proper terms.

Both Spain and Portugal face the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. However, Spain also has coastlines expanding in nearly every direction, with the obvious exception of the Pyrenees Mountains along the borders with Andorra 🇦🇩 and France 🇫🇷. The siesta culture is usually only in select parts of Spain and typically a cultural trait associated with the summer months, while Portugal lacks a similar cultural trait. Perhaps the seafaring identity of Portugal plays a major role in distinguishing the nation from neighboring Spain to the east and northeast.

Hype for the Future 52M: More on Portugal

Portuguese Heritage Festivals Abroad

The New England region, and more specifically New Bedford, Bristol County, Massachusetts, is home to the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament on the first weekend of August every year. Traditionally associated with the culture of Madeira specifically, volunteers for the board were initially restricted to the 1915 convention of only males born in Madeira and male descendants. In 1998, organizational policy had been updated to allow sons of females born in Madeira to volunteer, and in April 2023, the board had started to permit female volunteers.

Perhaps the most difficult feature of the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament to understand externally is that the event is the largest ethnic festival in all of New England, but more importantly, that the festival in New Bedford is apparently the largest celebration of Portuguese heritage at not just the national level, but also at the global level. Traditional Portuguese cuisine is typically served at the event, of course, though overlap with cuisine styles associated with Spain, France, and to a lesser extent, Italy also exist, the Portuguese heritage of the cuisine provides a clear and reasonable distinction from the surrounding nationalities.

Hype for the Future 52L: What to Expect when Listening to Portuguese Music

Preamble

Portugal 🇵🇹 is located on the extreme western end of the European mainland and is associated with the beginning of Europe in most cases, before even the larger nation of Spain 🇪🇸 also located on the peninsula. Though the languages are distinct, with very different orthographic conventions and grammars with respect to one another, both are Romance languages (descended from Latin) and particularly closely related as Ibero-Romance languages, resulting in more shared vocabulary than most other Romance language pairs. Of the Romance languages, Portuguese, of course, shares more overall lexicography with Spanish than with French, Italian, or Romanian; while Spanish, of course, shares more with Portuguese than with the other aforementioned languages. Of the Romance languages, the linguistics of Portugal are typically derived from the northern part of the nation, while Spanish linguistics are often Castilian by nature.

Musical Styles

Though Portugal is often overshadowed by Spain and the musical styles often overlap, the most important distinction is with the iconic artist Emanuel, notable for “Pimba, Pimba” as a signature feature of the pimba genre in particular. Apart from Emanuel, Marco Paulo is another significant influence in terms of Portuguese musical tastes and heritage.

Hype for the Future 52K: Spotify Interests in Portuguese

Preamble

Thanks to Spotify and related music platforms, as well as Wikipedia articles and a mix of proprietary and open-source platforms, novaTopFlex has been able to identify numerous types of interests in terms of different characteristics. The community can search online for interests based on different types of artists as well as by nationality, and novaTopFlex is particularly interested in music from the European continent.

Portuguese Interests

Though restaurants are not a feature of Spotify, of course, novaTopFlex has been able to identify restaurants of interest by the music of interest at any given time. Unfortunately, however, novaTopFlex will only be able to reasonably expect Portuguese cuisine in the United States while in the South Coast region of Massachusetts or Rhode Island or possibly a select few Hawaiian locations.

Portuguese artists of particular interest are typically the artists associated with the highlighted playlist of interesting Portuguese music. In the case of Portuguese music and particular genres, novaTopFlex has identified Emanuel, Paulo Alexandre, Roberto Leal, Carmen Silva, Marco Paulo, Linde De Suza, José Malhoa, Zimbro, Os Portugas, Quim Barreiros, Ruth Marlene, Jorge Ferreira, Joey Medeiros, Michel Teló, Mike da Gaita, Starlight, Rancho das Lavradeiras de São Martinho da Gandra, Rosinha, Tiago Neto & Paulo Fragoso, Amigos de Sobreposta, Carlos Ribeiro, Augusto Canário & Amigos, Dino Meira, Tonicha, Toka & Dança, Helder Baptista, Eduardo Sant’ana, Maria Lisboa, Tayti, Bombocas, and Ruizinho (Cantador de Penacova). For the pimba genre, Tony Carreira, Mónica Sintra, and Ágata are highly related beyond the song “Pimba, Pimba” by Emanuel.

Hype for the Future 49E: Not All Spanish Life is Castilian

Apart from the Castilian Spanish heritage of the nation, Spain is also home to relatively outlying areas including (from west to east) Galicia, the Basque Country, and Catalonia—all on the northern side of the nation. The native name associated with Galicia is officially Galicia; however, the local name is often associated with the spelling and pronunciation of Galiza, though Reintegrationism may advocate for Galiça instead. Beyond the Galician realm, the Basque Country is natively known as Euskadi and Catalonia as Catalunya, respectively.

Hype for the Future 49C: Portuguese and Spanish Cultural Influences Compared

Galician influences are also to be represented and factored into the discussion of the cultural traits and differences between Spain and Portugal. However, much of the Spanish interior is accurately depicted as semi-arid and relatively hot, though not necessarily comparable to the Sahara. In comparison, Portuguese culture and heritage are generally more influenced by the more lush and green territory claimed by Portugal, where the national identity is a seafaring identity and where the Portuguese are often depicted as unable to withstand distance from the ocean in any direction.

Hype for the Future 49B: Artifacts of Portuguese Culture

Portuguese culture in the modern European sense covers the modern-day mainland of Portugal, as well as the associated islands and related regions, particularly Madeira and the Azores Islands. Also of note from a Portuguese context is the orthography, which often prefers “m” at the end of words and famously seems to nasalize almost everything, particularly with the suffix “-ão” common to the language. Also a common feature of the Portuguese language is the letter “ç,” as Portugal does not claim the letters “k” nor “z” are truly legible domestically. Instead of “kilo-,” for instance, the national identity may prefer “quilo-,” and the orthographic preferences also associated with the Portuguese also contain the digraphic preferences of “lh” and “nh.” The latter, “nh,” is actually derived from the traditional orthography of the palatalized “n,” referring, of course, to the historic notation of “nn” for both Portuguese and Spanish (the latter of which has a tilde accent above the “n” nowadays).

Hype for the Future 49A: Portuguese Heritage in the United States

While researching much of the New England region, a notable quirk of the region was the outstanding Portuguese influence to Rhode Island, the South Coast of Massachusetts, and even Hawaii. Although Hawaiian culture was seldom influenced by the Portuguese, the seafaring identity is a shared feature of Portuguese and Hawaiian customs, many of which are otherwise unrelated. Massachusetts and Rhode Island, however, are perhaps more influenced by the Portuguese, though the Portuguese population still only scratches the surface of the South Coast region, including Tiverton and Little Compton in addition to Bristol County, Massachusetts, where most of the Portuguese-American population has resided traditionally and continues to reside in the United States of America. Not just is the South Coast region nearing the Narragansett of cultural or historical significance to the Portuguese-Americans, but the region is also important to Brazilian and Cape Verdean populations, as well as to the culturally similar region of the Azores.