Portuguese Mozambique or Portuguese East Africa are the common terms by which Mozambique is designated when referring to the historic period when it was a Portuguese overseas territory.

Former Portuguese Mozambique constituted a string of Portuguese colonies and later a single Portuguese overseas province along the south-east African coast, which now form the Republic of Mozambique.During its history, Portuguese Mozambique has the following formal designations: "Captaincy of Sofala" (1501-1569), "Captaincy of Mozambique and Sofala" (1570-1676), "Captaincy-General of Mozambique and Rivers of Sofala" (1676-1836), "Province of Mozambique" (1836-1926), "Colony of Mozambique" (1926-1951), "Province of Mozambique" (1951-1972) and "State of Mozambique" (1972-1975).Portuguese trading settlements and, later, colonies are formed along the coast from 1498, when Vasco da Gama first reaches the Mozambican coast.

Lourenço Marques explores the area that is now Maputo Bay in 1544.

He settles permanently in present-day Mozambique, where he spends most of his life, and his work is followed by other Portuguese explorers, sailors and traders.

Some of these colonies are handed over in the late nineteenth century for rule by chartered companies such as the Companhia de Moçambique and the Companhia do Niassa.

In 1951, the colonies sre combined into a single overseas province under the name Moçambique as an integral part of Portugal.

Most of the original colonies have given their names to the modern provinces of Mozambique.Mozambique, according to official policy, is not a colony at all but rather a part of the "pluricontinental and multiracial nation" of Portugal.

Portugal seeks in Mozambique, as it does in all its colonies, to Europeanize the local population and assimilate them into Portuguese culture.

Lisbon also wants to retain the colonies as trading partners and markets for its goods.

African inhabitants of the colony are ultimately supposed to become full citizens with full political rights through a long development process.

To this end, segregation in Mozambique is minimal compared to that in neighboring South Africa.

However, paid forced labor, to which all Africans are liable if they fail to pay head taxes, is not abolished until the early 1960s.