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The Lousal Mine and the respective mining village is located in the parish of Azinheira dos Barros and São Mamede do Sádão, municipality of Grândola.



Although the region has been populated since the Copper Age, as attested by the megalithic monuments and the Castelo Velho do Lousal, it is at the end of the 19th century that the modern exploration of the mine begins.



During the 1940s, the acquisition of "Mines et Industrie" and "Minas da Caveira" by Antoine Velge, president of SAPEC de Setúbal, a chemical fertilizer manufacturing company, led to an increase in mining work.



It is during the 1950s, under the direction of Frédéric Velge and Günter Strauss, that this pyrite mine will become one of the most modern in Portugal.



With the crisis in industrial sulfur production, due to the free withdrawal of sulfur from oil platforms, in the 1980s, the mines in the pyrite belt are successively closed. In 1988, extraction at Lousal was closed.



With the closure of the mine, the village began to decay until, in the early nineties, the Municipality of Grândola and the Frédéric Velge Foundation began a program to revitalize Lousal (RELOUSAL). The program is based on the creation of a new territorial specialization based on cultural tourism, with reinforcement of the mining identity, especially the Museu Mineiro do Lousal and Centro Ciência Viva do Lousal.

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