Portugal - Libraries and museums



The leading libraries of Portugal are the National Library, founded in 1796 (about 2.3 million volumes) and the Library of the Academy of Sciences (400,000) in Lisbon, the University Library in Coimbra (one million), and the Municipal Library in Porto (1.27 million). In 1997 the country had 168 public libraries with 4.8 million volumes.

There are some 300 museums in Portugal. Most feature exhibits relating to Portuguese history. Lisbon has the National Museum of Ancient Art, the Museum of Decorative Arts, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, and the Center for Modern Art, as well as the National Museum of Natural History. The Abbey of the Friars of St. Jerome in Belém and the Battle Abbey in Batalha contain some of the finest examples of Portuguese art. There are dozens of municipal ethnographic and historic museums, as well as many finely restored castles and manors.

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