Portugal's pioneering role in exploring the world is the focus of an exhibition this week in conjunction with National Day.
On show are maps, sketches, navigational equipment and a replica of the two-masted 15-metre caravel sailing vessel, aboard which navigator Bartolomeu Dias first rounded Africa's Cape of Good Hope in 1488.
Portugal in the Opening of the World runs from June 14-28 at Sheung Wan Exhibition Centre.
'It's a huge exhibition with simple explanatory text in English and Chinese,' Portuguese cultural attache Beatrix Brasil said.
'The Portuguese made an important contribution to pioneering world exploration and establishing communications between different civilisations 500 years ago.' Portuguese explorers were among the first Europeans to reach Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania. They established contacts with China as long ago as 1513, with a trading presence sanctioned in Macau in 1557, and reached Japan in 1543, building the city of Nagasaki in 1571.
'They introduced discoveries in nautical astronomy, cartography and medicine, as well as the art of shipbuilding,' Ms Brasil said.
The Chinese regarded these pioneers with a certain circumspection, however.
