The Madeira Archipelago is composed of the Madeira, Porto Santo, Desertas and Selvagens islands. It is located in the Atlantic Ocean, 700 km from the African coast and 900 km from the European Continent. More specifically, it is between the parallels of 32º 22' 20'' N and 33º7'50'' N and the meridians 16º16'30'' W and 17º16'38'' W.
This archipelago is part of a wider bio-geographical association, designated by Macronesian, to which the Azores, Canary and Cape Vert archipelagos also belong.
The Madeira Island has a total area of 736,75 Km2, presenting a maximum length of 58 Km, in the East - West direction, and 23 Km of maximum width in the North - South direction. It has several kinds of habitats, arranged in a very accentuated relief, where one quarter of its surface is situated above 1.000 m of altitude. The plain areas, or relatively plain, are scarce.
The Porto Santo Island, with a total area of 69 Km2, is very distinct from the Madeira Island, although they are geographically close. Its ex-libris is a nine kilometres long beach of white sand.
In political terms, the Madeira archipelago is a Portuguese autonomous region, provided with its own governmental organs (Regional Legislative Assembly and Regional Government) with approximaltely 250.000 inhabitants (source: INE/2001). Funchal is the capital with about 105.000 inhabitants.