In addition, the International Business Centre of Madeira, also known as the Madeira Free Trade Zone, was created formally in the 1980s as a tool of regional economic policy. The main harbour in Funchal has long been the leading Portuguese port in cruise liner dockings, an important stopover for Atlantic passenger cruises between Europe, the Caribbean and North Africa. The region is noted for its Madeira wine, flora, fauna, with its pre-historic laurel forest, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is by far the most populous and densely populated Portuguese island. Madeira is a popular year-round resort, particularly for fellow Portuguese, but also British (148,000 visits in 2021), and Germans (113,000). The archipelago is considered to be the first territorial discovery of the exploratory period of the Age of Discovery. Madeira, originally uninhabited, was claimed by Portuguese sailors in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator in 1419 and settled after 1420. Many microclimates are found at different elevations. Madeira generally has a very mild and moderate subtropical climate with mediterranean summer droughts and winter rain.
The autonomous region is an integral part of the European Union as an outermost region. The region has political and administrative autonomy through the Administrative Political Statute of the Autonomous Region of Madeira provided for in the Portuguese Constitution. Roughly half of the region's population lives in Funchal. The archipelago includes the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, and the Desertas, administered together with the separate archipelago of the Savage Islands. The capital of Madeira is Funchal, which is located on the main island's south coast. Madeira is geologically located on the African Tectonic Plate, although it is culturally, politically and ethnically associated with Europe, with its population predominantly descended from original Portuguese settlers. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in a region known as Macaronesia, just under 400 kilometres (250 mi) to the north of the Canary Islands and 520 kilometres (320 mi) west of the Kingdom of Morocco. Madeira ( / m ə ˈ d ɪər ə/, / m ə ˈ d ɛər ə/, Portuguese: ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira ( Portuguese: Região Autónoma da Madeira), is one of two autonomous regions of Portugal, the other being the Azores.
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