There are 473.4 roundabouts in Portugal for every million inhabitants, revealed a study by rent-a-car company ‘Discover Cars’, which collected data from 145 countries and 10,000 locations.
Only France surpasses Portugal, with a total of 663.8 roundabouts. It is also the country with the most roundabouts in the world, with 42.986 roundabouts, followed by the United Kingdom (25,976) and Italy (15,053).
The study focused on the total number of roundabouts per square kilometer and per capita: in this regard, Portugal is the runner-up in the world. Portugal ‘failed’ the top 5 in the world for the highest number of roundabouts per square kilometer, with 53 roundabouts, pointed out the study, which counted 4.851 roundabouts on Portuguese soil.
According to the data from the online car rental company, that was taken from OpenStreetMap, there is an interesting fact, that for some travelers, these are tourist attractions that they intend to visit. "Roundabouts are often not considered a place worth seeing" when thinking about one's holidays, said Aleksandrs Buraks from Discover Cars.
"But there are exceptions. There is a wide variety of famous roundabouts around the world, many of which attract tourists in their own right. In this research, we delved a little deeper into the countries with a high number of roundabouts and where these renowned roundabouts can be found", he indicated.
In Portugal, the Globo roundabout in Albufeira was highlighted. "It is immediately recognisable due to its globe decoration and water feature, which makes it an excellent attraction for tourists travelling by car", said ‘Discover Cars’.
It would be really great if Portuguese drivers could learn to indicate on them, something at the present time, along with tailgating, they seem to think it is normal to do...
By Anthony Hughes from Lisbon on 09 Nov 2023, 11:10