Key facts
- Country
- Portugal
- Region
- Centro
- Intermunic comm
- Beiras e Serra da Estrela
- District
- Castelo Branco
- Total
- 118.76 km (45.85 sq mi)
- Density
- 52.25/km (135.3/sq mi)
- Time zone
- UTC+00:00 ( WET )
- Summer dst
- UTC+01:00 ( WEST )
- Website
- https://www.cm-belmonte.pt
via Wikipedia infobox
~8 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Belmonte ( Portuguese pronunciation: [ˌbɛlˈmõtɨ] ), officially Town of Belmonte (Portuguese: Vila de Belmonte), is a town and municipality in the district of Castelo Branco, Portugal. The municipality's population in 2021 was 6,205, in an area of 118.76 square kilometres (45.85 mi).
Belmonte is distinguished by its enduring Jewish community, which dates back to at least the 13th century. This community, numbering about 300 in 2008, preserved its faith through crypto-Judaism, maintaining Jewish traditions in secret despite the pressures of the Inquisition and forced conversions. Open practice was re-established with the founding of a synagogue in 1996. The Belmonte Jewish Museum, opened in 2005, chronicles this remarkable history.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Belmonte” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.