Ribeira Brava is a municipality on the island of Madeira, in the Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 Autonomous Region of Madeira

Madeira

Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...

. It is located along the southern coast (approximately center), and is west of Câmara de Lobos

Câmara de Lobos

Câmara de Lobos -History:The location of the modern town is believed to be the original landing point for the Portuguese discoverer João Gonçalves Zarco, who is credited with the discovery of the Madeira Islands...

 and the regional capital Funchal

Funchal

Funchal is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Autonomous Region of Madeira. The city has a population of 112,015 and has been the capital of Madeira for more than five centuries.-Etymology:...

. In 2001 its population was about 12500 inhabitantas in various agglomeration, covering an area of 65.1 km² (there were about 191.29 inhabitants/km²).

Geography

The municipalities raison d'etre, the Ribeira Brava ravine and river valley extends 10-12m from the slopes of the west-central mountains of Madeira. Its waters provide the primary sources of drinking-water (a small reservoir collect surface run-off) to the area and electricitiy to the island of Madeira. Approximately ten tributaries feed this river, whose course ends in the Serra de Água, and much later empties into the Atlantic along the village's coast.

The primary urban agglomerations are the four civil parishes, constituted with their own local government, and located along regional roadways. They include:

• Campanário
• Ribeira Brava
  Ribeira Brava (parish)
  Ribeira Brava is the name of a parish in the west-central part of Madeira. It is located in the similarly named district of Ribeira Brava, Madeira It is located SW of Santana, W of Machico, W of Funchal and ESE of Calheta...
  
  
• Serra de Água
  Serra de Água
  Serra de Água is a parish in the district of Ribeira Brava in the Madeira Islands. The population in 2001 is 1,317, its density is 53.3/km² and the area is 24.7 km². The main industry is agriculture...
  
  
• Tabua

Economy

Agriculture and the fishery are the important economies that support the villages in this region, although commercial services localized in the central village (also called Ribeira Brava) provide daily support for locals.