Portugal's Algarve Golden Triangle formed around three luxury resorts built on former farmland and pine forest between the 1960s and 1970s.
- Quinta do Lago
- Vale do Lobo
- Vilamoura
The region had lived on agriculture inland and fishing along the shore until the Estado Novo government, recognising the coast's tourism potential after the success of Spanish resorts such as Torremolinos in the 1950s, decided in 1962 to build Faro Airport.
That same year Trusthouse Forte and Costain acquired an untouched stretch of coast and founded Vale do Lobo, the first integrated luxury resort in the Algarve, where Henry Cotton designed an eighteen-hole golf course that drew affluent British visitors.
Vilamoura took root on the 1600-hectare Quinta do Morgado farm under the banker Artur Cupertino de Miranda, who from 1966 planned a marina-centred resort through the company Lusotur, opening the Old Course designed by Frank Pennink in 1969. Quinta do Lago followed in 1971, founded by the Polish-Brazilian developer André Jordan on a 550-hectare estate that had belonged to a single family for three centuries, and it hosted its first Portuguese Open in 1976 on courses played from military tents before permanent facilities existed.
Excavation of the Vilamoura marina began in 1971, and in 1974 it received its first sailboat, the Giralda, owned by the Count of Barcelona, establishing the largest and safest harbour in Portugal for yachtsmen and royal visitors alike.
