Culture, in all its dimension, that is, from the manifestations of the so-called “high culture” (painting, sculpture, performing arts, etc.), to “popular culture” (crafts, folklore, gastronomy, etc..), from the new “cultural industries” (advertising, audiovisual, multimedia, etc..) to activities that are structured around the recovery and exploration of the heritage is currently a weighing sector on the economy, generating wealth and employment (direct and indirect).

Its economic potentialities allow to put it in perspective as an alternative to other sectors that generate income and employment, or as a complement to these, a strategy of diversification of local economies and demand for new expertise niches.

Considering this context, the Cultural Master Plan for the Municipality of Cantanhede – the first ever held in Portugal – sought to set itself up as a strategic document for sustained and balanced development and as an instrument to coordinate interventions, both tangible and intangible, defining the cultural policy to be pursuit in the municipality, buoyed by the economic and social development point of view, in order to achieve the maximum of synergy effects, both with regard to human resources enhancement and the strengthening of social cohesion as in promoting the image that Cantanhede projects abroad.