Câmara de Lobos

This default description comes from wikipedia
Cmara de Lobos (European Portuguese pronunciation: [km lou] ; lit.'Chamber of Wolves' or 'Wolves' Chamber') is a municipality and town in the southern coast of the Portuguese island of Madeira, divided in 5 freguesias. A de facto suburb of the much larger capital city of Funchal, it is one of the larger population centres and an extension of the Funchal economy.== History ==The location of the modern town is believed to be the original landing point for the Portuguese discoverer Joo Gonalves Zarco, who is credited with the discovery of the Madeira Islands. When the explorer disembarked in this area (1419), he observed a narrow rocky peninsula that extended into the ocean, and another nearby that formed an amphitheatre-like harbour that could shelter ships from Atlantic storms. There, Zarco and his men also found a large colony of marine animals that would become the reason for naming this area Cmara de Lobos.The name lobos is a Portuguese derivation for "seals" (Portuguese: lobos-marinhos), which were the animals discovered by Zarco and his men in the sheltered bay. Because of the large colony of these animals, the area was christened cmara dos lobos. This was a pejorative term, since cmara is the Portuguese word for "municipal chamber" (sometimes erroneously referred to as the "town hall" or "town council"), and the sailors literally named the area the "Municipal chamber of [the place where there are] sea-wolves". Today, the species of monk seals are rare, being an animal common to the Mediterranean, but today confined to a small colony on the Desertas Islands.The municipality was created by ministerial decree on 25 May 1835, and invested its executive on 4 October 1835.