Country Cape Verde Local time Monday 12:31 PM Civil parish Maio, Cape Verde | Island Maio Municipality Maio, Cape Verde | |
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Weather 25°C, Wind NE at 31 km/h, 61% Humidity | ||
Calheta (Cape Verdean Creole: Kadjéta, sometimes known as Calheta do Maio) is a village in the western part of the island of Maio. The village is around 10 km north of the island capital of Vila do Maio. Its population at the 2010 census is 1,156 making it the island's second largest settlement. About 500 to 600 m to the west is the Atlantic with its bay. The village is connected with the western island road (paved since the 1990s) stretching from Vila do Maio to Cascabulho. The other three rural dirt roads do not connect to any place on the east of the island but the northeast with Cascabulho as an alternate road. The geography today is predominantly with fields and groves around it, grasslands still exists in the eastern area. Until the 1980s, almost the whole area were made up of grasslands.
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Map of Calheta, Cape Verde
The urban area (with some gaps) reaches west to the Atlantic.
The city was known as Porto Português (Portuguese for "Portuguese port") which is in opposition of Porto Inglês which is still called today (the other name is Vila do Maio). The Portuguese used it to export salt to Portugal, the salt were mined by slaves from Terras Salgadas up north up to the early 19th century.