Overview
In Portugal, the city is not an administrative division, therefore a city generally does not necessarily correspond to a municipality, with the exception of the entirely urban municipalities, such as Lisbon, Porto, Funchal, Amadora, Entroncamento e 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, 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 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.
The most recent cities were proclaimed on 12 June 2009: Valença, Senhora da Hora, São Pedro do Sul, Samora Correia, and Borba
The most populous cities are: Lisbon (Lisboa), Oporto (Porto), Braga, Amadora, Gaia, Queluz, Funchal, Coimbra, Setubal, Agualva-Cacem and Almada.
Read more about this topic: List Of Cities In Portugal