Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture World Heritage Site

Official name: Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture | UNESCO
Country: Portugal | Map
Continent: Europe
Location: Azores
38.5134° Lat, -28.5411° Lon | Map
Code: 1117
Time Zone: Europe/Lisbon (WEST, +0100)
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Category: Cultural
Description: Inscribed 2004. The 987-ha site on the volcanic island of Pico, the second largest in the Azores archipelago, consists of a remarkable pattern of spaced-out, long linear walls running inland from, and parallel to, the rocky shore. The walls were built to protect the thousands of small, contiguous, rectangular plots (currais) from wind and seawater. Evidence of this viniculture, whose origins date back to the 15th century, is manifest in the extraordinary assembly of the fields, in houses and early 19th-century manor houses, in wine-cellars, churches and ports. The extraordinarily beautiful man-made landscape of the site is the best remaining area of a once much more widespread practice.