Along with Magueyes, Tibes, Montes Llanos, Maragüez, Machuelo Arriba, Sabanetas, and Cerrillos, Portugués is one of the municipality's eight rural interior barrios.

[3] Portugués is a mountainous rural barrio located in the central section of the municipality, north of the city of Ponce.

During the 17th century the River marked the eastern boundary of a growing settlement than ran as far as Guayanilla Bay, a region that came to be known as Ponce, but which today is part of a neighboring municipality.

The masonry building that house the baths still exists on the northbound side of Puerto Rico Highway 503 in Barrio Portugues.

[8] The name Hato de Portugués has been traced back to the Puerto Rico General Registry of Lands of November 1800.

Towards the end of the 16th century, even before the birth of the village of Ponce, Don Pedro Rodríguez de Guzmán[9][note 2] established a small community and a store on the banks of Río Baramaya.

And, what is more, as time passed this unofficial name of the river was accidentally used to refer to the hato in that area, and thus, to today's Barrio Portugues.

Portugues is home to the Tibes Indigenous Ceremonial Center discovered in 1975 after hurricane rains uncovered pottery.

The salsa song "La Parranda Fania" by Hector Lavoe (Fania Records, 2012) says "De Ponce hasta Comerio, nos vamos pa' Rio Chiquito..." (From Ponce to Comerio, we head to Rio Chiquito...)