Is composed of 5.411 square kilometres with approx. 395,000 permanent inhabitants. This figure can swell to over a million people at the height of the summer. Its administrative centre is Faro controlling 16 Municipalities, who in turn govern a total of 77 Parishes.
The length of the south-facing coastline is approx. 155 kilometres and stretches about 52 kilometres to the north on the west. At the widest point to the north, it is approximately 36 kilometres deep. Communication is by road but there is single-track railway line running from Lagos to Vila Real do Santo António that also links to the line running to Lisbon and the north. The old " EN125 " main road runs along the whole coast and has now been greatly replaced by the new parallel motorway "A22" (also known as the Via do Infante ), starting at the border of Spain and stretching west to Lagos . Close to Albufeira it joins with the motorway to Lisbon . This motorway will take the visitor from the Spanish boarder at Vila Real de Santo António in the east to the historic town of Lagos in the west in a little over one hour of driving, thus now making the whole Algarve very easily accessible. There is one international airport located close to Faro and this conveniently lies in the middle of the Algarve coastline.
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