It was the agriculturists - market gardeners, wine growers, cereal farmers and shepherds - who, by clearing the land for cultivation or using it for pasture, both intensively and extensively, had the major influence on the shape of the territory as a whole.

The communities themselves are another expression of this process. Clustered together or spread over large areas, the different types of settlement both reflect and help explain much of the history of the landscape and its character, which we assume to be natural.

The small, compact villages of Trás-os-Montes contrast with the more dispersed nature of the Minho region, with its high population density.

Between these two extremes, there are a great many different situations. Estremadura, for example, has a combination of villages, hamlets, scattered groups of houses and large farm estates, while in the Alentejo, the landscape is marked by montes (self-contained farming communities) and large villages separated by great distances. ln the mountain areas, populations are concentrated in small settlements; in the tenant farms in the south of the country, the land is divided into small plots; in some coastal areas, widespread development has been the rule as people moved to these areas in relatively recent times; the Aveiro Lagoon is characterized by communities strung along the roads, adjacent to plots of land that begin at the roadside; the Douro valley is a land of large farm estates, a dispersed form of settlement which, while becoming less common, is also found on the outskirts of towns.

In addition to the changes seen in communities, characterized by an explosion of urbanization that has far from run its course, there has been an increasingly intensive use of land. The most obvious consequence of this is the growing degradation of natural resources, leading to significant changes in habitats and, by extension, in the species that depend on them.