Города Португалии: Статус, История и Современность

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This is a list of cities in Portugal. In Portugal, a city (cidade) is an honorific term given to locations that meet several criteria, such as having a minimum number of inhabitants, good infrastructure (schools, medical care, cultural and sports facilities), or have a major historical importance. The country's demographic expansion of the 1980s prompted the elevation of several towns to city status and, as of 2018, 159 locations in Portugal are considered a city.

In Portugal, the city is not an administrative division, therefore a city generally does not necessarily correspond to a municipality, which is the second level local government in the country. Some entirely urban municipalities do coincide with cities, such as Lisbon, Porto, Funchal, Amadora, Entroncamento, and São João da Madeira. The municipality with the most cities is Paredes Municipality, which contains four cities. Until 1910, a location was proclaimed city by royal charter (carta régia), which happened 25 times to current Portuguese cities (royal charters were also granted to cities of the Portuguese Empire; for example, São Paulo in 1711). During the Portuguese First Republic, the process was transferred to the parliament, which elevated three towns to the category of city. The dictatorial Estado Novo regime proclaimed seven cities on the Portuguese mainland (as well as some more in the colonies), this time by government decree. After the 1974 Carnation Revolution, proclamation of cities returned to parliament and now, Portugal has 156 cities, one of the consequences being that the title no longer holds the prestige it once had. Eight locations have been always considered cities since Portugal became an independent kingdom (de facto 1128): Braga, Coimbra, Lamego, Porto and Viseu, as well as Évora, Lisbon and Silves, which were annexed at a later date. Guarda was the first city proclaimed as part of the independent kingdom, in 1199.

Portugal's two metropolitan areas, Lisbon with over 2.8 million inhabitants and Porto with over 1.7 million inhabitants, are the largest agglomerations in the country. In the two metropolitan areas, in addition to the large cities of Lisbon and Porto, there are other cities that together form the metropolitan area. The Lisbon Metropolitan Area consists of the large city of Lisbon, but also the cities of Amadora, Queluz, Setúbal, Almada, Agualva Cacém, etc. The Porto Metropolitan Area is made up of the large city of Porto, but also the cities of Vila Nova de Gaia, Gondomar, Rio Tinto, Póvoa de Varzim, Matosinhos, etc.

There are also large cities in Portugal that do not belong to any metropolitan area. These cities are mostly capitals of sub regions that are not considered metropolitan areas because the population is mainly located in the capital of the sub region. The city of Braga is the capital of the sub region of Cávado. The city of Funchal is the capital of the autonomous region of Madeira. The city of Coimbra is the capital of the sub region Região de Coimbra.