Murdeira

Murdeira
Settlement
A villa house, a dominant feature in all of Murdeira
Country	Cape Verde
Island	Sal
Municipality	Sal
Civil parish	Nossa Senhora das Dores
Population  (2010)
• Total	248
ID	41111

Murdeira (Cape Verdean Creole: Murdera) is a village in the island of Sal, Cape Verde. The village is situated on the west coast, roughly midway along the island's major highway linking the island capital Espargos and Santa Maria.

Murdeira was originally a small settlement of mostly of farmers and fishermen. Starting in the late 1990s, a major private undertaking led to the building of a seaside tourist village in the region, called "Aldeamento Turístico da Murdeira", which grew a permanent population as the houses were gradually bought, mostly by island locals and some foreigners. The name now primarily refers to this semi-gated community.

As with the rest of the island, the area around the village is dominated by mostly bare soil and some desert sands. Natural vegetation is scarce, but small concentrations of Faidherbia albida trees and small bushes occur in the region, near the coastline. The village sits in the center of a small cove beach inside the much larger Murdeira bay, which is known for its rich sealife and a small coral reef. The right wing of the bay forms an elevation whose characteristic profile garnered it the name Monte Leão (Mount Lion).