PORTUGALETE

town, Biscay (Vizcaya) provincia, in the autonomous Basque Country (Pis Vasco), northern Spain. The town, a northwestern suburb of Bilbao, lies at the mouth of the Nervin River, on the western side of Bilbao Bay. It was founded in 1322 by Mara Daz de Haro, wife of the infante Don Juan, prince of Castile, and was named for its function as a portus galorum (Latin: "galley-slave port"). Portugalete has metalworks, a boiler factory, and a soybean-processing plant. It is linked to Las Arenas (Guecho) on the opposite shore of the Nervin Estuary by a lofty transporter-suspension bridge, Vizcaya Bridge, built (1893) by Alberto Palacio, a native son. The town's Gothic church of Santa Mara dates from the 13th century. Pop. (1981) 57,534.