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Portugal officially the Portuguese Republic is a sovereign state located mostly on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, bordered to the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and east by Spain. Portugal is the oldest state on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest European nation-states, its territory having been continuously settled, invaded and fought over since prehistoric times. Portugal is a developed country with a high-income advanced economy, a developed market, and high living standards. It is ranked highly in terms of LGBTI rights (6th in Europe),] press freedom (18th), social progress (20th) and prosperity (25th), and has one of the best road networks in the world. With its political stability and low crime rates, it is ranked as the most peaceful country in the EU and the 3rd in the world.[23]Additionally, it is recognized as one of the fifteen sustainable states, maintaining a unitary semi-presidential republic. Portugal ranks above the OECD average in mathematics, science, and reading, having been the country with the most expressive positive evolution throughout PISA's studies. A Catholic-majority country for most of its history, in the last decades Portugal has transformed itself into a secular state with one of the world's highest rates of moral freedom. It was the first country to abolish life imprisonment and one of the earliest to abolish capital punishment. Practices such as abortion, same-sex marriage and adoption, medically assisted insemination for single women and lesbian couples, and altruistic surrogacy have been legalized. In 2001, Portugal became the first country in the world to decriminalize the possession and consumption of all illicit drugs, focusing on treatment and harm reduction, with significant public health gains.