Portuguese language in Africa The nation-states with Portuguese as an official language in Africa are referred to by the acronym PALOP () and include the following: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Portuguese is a primarily urban language having a reduced presence in rural areas, except for in Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe, where the language is more widespread. South Africa also has approximately 300,000 speakers of Portuguese, primarily settlers from Madeira and white Angolans and Mozambicans who emigrated from 1975 onwards, following the independence of the former colonies. The civil wars in Angola and Mozambique also resulted in
Portuguese Mozambicans more white emigration and settlement to the region, and Mozambique had 370,000 Portuguese settlers, who improved its economy, by the 1960s. It was during this time that António de Oliveira Salazar led Portugal, in which several thousands of Portuguese citizens fled to other countries, especially neighbouring Rhodesia and South Africa as well as Brazil and the United States. Blacks and some "mestiços" and whites revolted against Portuguese rule in 1974. The return to liberal democracy in Portugal led to the independence of its overseas colonies in 1975. By July 1975 around 80,000 Portuguese Mozambicans were left in the country from