São Jorge Island São Jorge Island São Jorge () is an island situated in the central group of the Azores archipelago and part of the autonomous region of Portugal. Separated from its nearest neighbors (Pico and Faial islands) by the Pico-São Jorge Channel, the central group is often referred colloquially as part of the "Triangulo" ("Triangle") group or just "The Triangle". São Jorge is a relatively long thin island with tall cliffs, whose 9500 inhabitants are concentrated on various geological debris fields ("fajãs") along the north and south coasts; from east to west, the island is long and, north to south, wide: its
Protected areas of the Azores today constitute the nucleus of the Island Nature Parks on each island. It was followed by Regional Legislative Decree 21/93/A (23 December 1993), which applied to the Azores the same jurisdictional regime established in national Decree 19/93 (23 January 1993), the "Rede Nacional de Áreas Protegidas" ("National Network of Protected Areas"). More than an adaption of the national regulations, it created the institutional structure that would give rise to Azorean protected areas, resulting in a reclassification of existing areas. Unfortunately, there were problems with the scheme, since the codification was not literally adaptable to the insular nature of the archipelago