Lisbon | History, Culture, Economy, & Facts (2024)

Lisbon, city, port, capital of Portugal, and the centre of the Lisbon metropolitan area. Located in western Portugal on the estuary of the Tagus (Tejo) River, it is the westernmost capital city in continental Europe and serves as the country’s chief port, largest city, and commercial, political, and tourist centre. The city’s name is a modification of the ancient Olisipo (Ulyssipo), and its founding has been attributed to the legacy of Ulysses (Odysseus), the hero of Homer’s Odyssey; to Elisha, purported to have been a grandson of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham; and, more credibly, to Phoenician colonists. Lisbon owes its historical prominence to its natural harbour, one of the most beautiful in the world. Area city, 33 square miles (85 square km). Pop. (2011) city, 547,733; metro. area, 2,821,876; (2021) city, 544,851; metro. area, 2,871,133.

Character of the city

Once a remote outpost on what was thought to be the farthest edge of the known world, Lisbon had established itself as a centre of operations for Portuguese exploration by the 15th century. The city centre was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755 but was rebuilt by the marquês de Pombal. This seagirt city of multicoloured houses and elegant parks and gardens is no longer the capital of a vast overseas empire. It has been reconstructed as a bustling modern metropolis. In fact, Lisbon was designated a European City of Culture in 1994, and in 1998 it hosted the World’s Fair (Expo ’98). That event sparked the city’s biggest renewal project since the rebuilding that followed the 1755 earthquake, including the construction of the six-lane Vasco da Gama Bridge, then the longest bridge in Europe, and other extensive upgrades of the city’s transportation infrastructure. The fair also was the primary catalyst for the construction along the Tagus River of an oceanarium, marinas, hotels, commercial complexes, and entertainment venues.

Despite modernization, Lisbon in many ways retains the air of a 19th-century city. The varinas (fish vendors) who roam the streets dressed in long black skirts still carry their wares in baskets on their heads. Vessels tie up at quays where the clang of trolley cars blends with ships’ horns. At dawn, fishing boats deposit their catch for noisy auction with Lisbon shop owners while the fish vendors wait to fill the baskets they peddle through the streets. Farther inland the fish market gives way to the equally colourful and clamorous fruit and vegetable market. Lisbon’s port maintains an intimacy with its city that was common in the days before steam. Amid the freighters, warships, cruise liners, and ferryboats, a picturesque note is struck by the fragatas of Phoenician origin; these crescent-shaped boats with their striking black hulls and pink sails still perform most of the harbour’s lighterage.

The general outlines of the city remain as they have for hundreds of years. Lisbon is still a city of balconies and vistas. Some of the most striking of the latter can be seen from the miradouros, the terraces maintained by the municipality on seven of its hillsides. (Many Lisboetas, as the people of Lisbon are known, profess their city to have seven traditional hills, like Rome.) For centuries Lisboetas have discussed the symptoms of an affliction they believe to be endemic in their city: saudade (“melancholy”), a state of anxiety tempered by fatalism that is said to be reflected in fado (“fate”), the melodic but deeply emotional folk songs that can still be heard in specific restaurants, mainly in the historic quarters of Alfama and Bairro Alto.

Landscape