Furnas is a civil parish in the municipality of Povoação on the island of São Miguel in the Portuguese Azores. The population in 2011 was 1,439, in an area of 34.43 km2. The parish is one of the largest in the island and in the Azores. It is located east of Lagoa and Ponta Delgada, west of Povoação and southeast of Ribeira Grande.

José do Canto was a Portuguese landowner and intellectual who distinguished himself as a bibliographer and promoter new agricultural technologies and species into the Azores. He was a renowned gardener and botanist responsible for the creation of botanical garden, that later bore his name, in Ponta Delgada. He was also a philosophical romantic and fan of Luís de Camões; his holdings included a large number of rare books in various languages, which were incorporated into the Azorean public library and regional archive.