Póvoa de Varzim

Póvoa in medieval Portuguese was the exact equivalent of Castilian puebla and Catalan pobla: it designated a new foundation granted by royal charter with fiscal privileges to attract settlers. The second element, de Varzim, is the more disputed. The reading most sustained in contemporary Portuguese onomastics derives it from the Germanic anthroponym Wargius or Vargius (from the Gothic root wargs, 'wolf', the same origin as modern German warg and archaic English warg), Latinised and preserved as the surname of the medieval owner lord. Other readings, today minoritarian, propose an opaque pre-Roman base. The seafaring town, founded as such by King Sancho I in 1190, was for centuries the main fishing port of northern Portugal. Its sardine tradition, its houses of four generations of fishermen and the marca de armas (family sigils painted on houses and boats, a system almost unique in Europe for identifying the lineage) make up the most singular ethnographic heritage of the Lusitanian coast.