Portuguese Real

The real (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʁɨˈaɫ], meaning "royal", plural: réis or [archaic] reais) was the unit of currency of Portugal from around 1430 until 1911. It replaced the dinheiro at the rate of 1 real = 840 dinheiros and was itself replaced by the escudo (as a result of the Republican revolution of 1910) at a rate of 1 escudo = 1000 réis. The escudo was further replaced by the euro at a rate of 1 euro = 200.482 escudos in 2002.

The first real was introduced by Ferdinand I around 1380. It was a silver coin and had a value of 120 dinheiros (10 soldos or ½ libra). In the reign of King João I (1385–1433), the real branco of 3½ libras and the real preto of 7 soldos (one tenth of a real branco) were issued. By the beginning of the reign of King Duarte I in 1433, the real branco (equivalent to 840 dinheiros) had become the unit of account in Portugal. From the reign of Manuel I (1495–1521), the name was simplified to "real", coinciding with the switch to minting real coins from copper.

In 1837, a decimal system was adopted for the coin denominations, with the first banknotes issued by the Banco de Portugal in 1847. In 1854, Portugal adopted a gold standard of 1000 réis = 1.62585 grams fine gold. This standard was maintained until 1891.

Large sums were usually expressed as "mil-réis" (sometimes "milréis") or 1,000 réis, a term often found in 19th-century Portuguese literature. In figures a mil-réis was written as 1$000, so that 60,000 réis would be written as 60$000 or 60 mil-réis.)

In 1911, the escudo replaced the real. One million réis (or one thousand mil-réis) was known as a conto de réis. This term survived the introduction of the escudo to mean 1000 escudos and is now used to mean five euros, almost exactly the converted value of 1000 escudos or one million réis (1 conto is approximately €4.98798).

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