By contrast with other southern European people, north Portuguese population registers an especially high prevalence of hypertension and stroke incidence. We designed a cohort study to identify subjects presenting accelerated and premature arterial ageing in the Portuguese population. Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) was measured in randomly sampled population dwellers aged 18 – 96 years from northern Portugal, and used as a marker of early vascular aging (EVA). Of the 3038 subjects enrolled, 2542 completed the evaluation. Mean PWV value for the entire population was 8.4 m/s (men: 8.6 m/s; women: 8.2 m/s; p<0.02). Subjects were classified with EVA if their PWV was ≥ 97.5^th percentile of z-score for mean PWV values adjusted for age (using normal European Reference values as comparators). The overall prevalence of EVA was 12.5%; 26.1% of individuals below 30 years presented this feature, and 40.2% of subjects in that same age strata were placed above the 90^th percentile of PWV. 18.7% of the population exhibited PWV values above 10 m/s, with male predominance (17.2% of men aged 40–49 years had PWV>10m/s). Logistic regression models indicated gender differences concerning the risk of developing large artery damage, with women having the same odds of PWV>10m/s 10 years later than men. Conclusions: population PWV values were higher than expected in a low CV risk area (Portugal). High prevalence rates of EVA and noteworthy large artery damage in young ages were found.