Discovered in 1419 by the Portuguese navigators, Tristão Vaz Teixeira, Bartolomeu Perestrelo and João Gonçalves Zarco, Madeira is a place of great natural beauty. It is situated on the African plate, in the Atlantic Ocean, between 30 ° and 33 ° north latitude, almost to the same latitude of Casablanca; 978 km southwest of Lisbon, about 700 km west of the African coast and 450 km north of the Canary Islands.

This archipelago is formed by the island of Madeira, with an area of 740.7 km²; by the island of Porto Santo, with 42.5 km²; by the Desertas Islands, with a total of 14.2 km² in all of its three uninhabited islands; and also by the Selvagens islands, whose set of three islands and sixteen uninhabited islets holds an area of 3.6 km². Of the eight islands, only the two largest (Madeira and Porto Santo) are inhabited, with main access to Madeira International Airport in Santa Cruz and Porto Santo Airport.