Portugal-Spain border in the context of "Guadiana"

Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. It is an unitary semi-presidential republic composed by continental Portugal and two autonomous regions, with Lisbon as both its capital and largest city. The continental portion borders Spain to the north and east, with Madeira and the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. It features the westernmost point in continental Europe.

The western Iberian Peninsula has been continuously inhabited since prehistoric times, with the earliest signs of settlement dating to 5500 BC. Celtic and Iberian peoples arrived in the first millennium BC. The region came under Roman control in the second century BC. A succession of Germanic peoples and the Alans ruled from the fifth to eighth centuries AD. Muslims invaded mainland Portugal in the eighth century, but were gradually expelled by the Christian Reconquista, culminating with the capture of the Algarve between 1238 and 1249. Modern Portugal began taking shape during this period, initially as a county of the Christian Kingdom of León in 868, and formally as a sovereign kingdom with the Manifestis Probatum in 1179.

Alcañices (Portuguese: Alcanises) is a small town in the province of Zamora, Spain. It is very close to the Portugal-Spain border, not far from the Portuguese town of Bragança. In fact, the Village is especially remembered for being the seat of the Treaty of Alcañices that on 12 September 1297 defined the border between Portugal and the Crown of Castile, the oldest in Europe.

Its name is of Arabic origin and means "the churches", although the origin of the town may have been a hillfort of the Zoelae.

The Guadiana River (/ˌɡwɑːdiˈɑːnə/ GWAH-dee-AH-nə, US also /ɡwɑːdˈjɑːnə/ gwahd-YAH-nə, Spanish: [ɡwaˈðjana], Portuguese: [ɡwɐdiˈɐnɐ]) is an international river defining a long stretch of the Portugal-Spain border, separating Extremadura and Andalusia (Spain) from Alentejo and Algarve (Portugal). The river's basin extends from la Mancha and the eastern portion of Extremadura to the southern provinces of the Algarve; the river and its tributaries flow from east to west, then south through Portugal to the border towns of Vila Real de Santo António (Portugal) and Ayamonte (Spain), where it flows into the Gulf of Cádiz. With a course that covers a distance of 829 kilometres (515 mi), it is the fourth-longest in the Iberian Peninsula, and its hydrological basin extends over an area of approximately 68,000 square kilometres (26,000 mi) (the majority of which lies within Spain).

38°26′17.0″N 7°19′56.0″W / 38.438056°N 7.332222°W / 38.438056; -7.332222

Ribeira de Cuncos is a Portuguese ravine that marks the southern point of the disputed section of the Portugal-Spain border, (Arroyo de Cuncos in Spanish).