According to abbreviationfinder, Lisbon is the capital of Portugal and largest city in the country, (2011) 552 700 residents. The city extends over a hull area up to 100 m high, cut by a few short coastal valleys, which slopes down to the right bank of the Tagus.
The ingression bay of the lower Tejo, the Sea of Straw (Mar da Palha), which is enlarged here like a lake, is an excellent natural harbor and is separated from the sea by an estuary section narrowed to 2–3 km and around 15 km long.
Lisbon is the seat of the President, the Parliament, the government, the highest state, judicial and others. Authorities as well as an archbishop (since 1394, titled as patriarch since 1716). Lisbon has three state universities (the oldest founded in 1290; the Technical University, founded in 1931; the New University, founded in 1973; there are also the Catholic University, founded in 1968; six private universities), the Academy of Sciences (founded in 1779), the Art Academy, and the Polytechnic Institute with a theater – and film academy, military academy, scientific institutes, national archive and others Archives, National Library; numerous museums (including Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, national museums for archeology, azulejos, carriages; military museum, design and fashion museum, picture gallery, Museu do Chiado, Portuguese art of the 19th century, the modern and present; Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, with an overview of all epochs of art and Centro de Arte Moderna), National Theater, National Theater São Carlos (Opera); botanical and zoological garden, Pavilhão dos Oceanos (aquarium).
Lisbon is a lively trading city; there are important international trade fairs and a European exchange. The industry (shipbuilding and wagon construction, steelworks, oil refineries, electrical engineering, production of textiles, chemicals, beer, sugar, ceramics, hardware and pharmaceuticals, tobacco processing) is mainly located on Mar da Palha, in the east and northeast, as well as in the new industrial belt outside the urban area south of the river (Outra Banda) in Almada, Barreiro, Seixal and others Places.
The connection is created by a road bridge (completed in 1966, 1 013 m span, 2 278 m length); a second 17.2 km long road bridge was completed in 1998; there is also a brisk ferry traffic. The port was the largest in the Iberian Peninsula for a long time and is now the third largest port in the country after Sines and Leixões. The port has a dry dock for 300,000-ton tankers; now also a container terminal. Lisbon-Portela Airport is 6 km north of the city center. An underground railway has also been used for inner-city traffic (since 1960); several short mountain railways and passenger lifts connect the lower town with the districts on the heights. In 1998 the new Ostbahnhof was completed (architect: S. Calatrava). – In 1994, Lisbon was the »European City of Culture« and the venue for the World exhibition »EXPO 1998«.
Attractions
In the southeast of Lisbon, less affected by the earthquake in 1755 than the lower city, lies the oldest part of the city. King Alfonso I founded a castle-like cathedral (Sé Patriarcal) in the French Romanesque style in 1147 on the site of a mosque below the São Jorge Castle (originally 11th century) (after the earthquake of 1344 it was expanded to include a choir with a gallery and a chapel wreath and cloister; renewed after 1755).
To the west of the castle hill (Graça district), the former largest Gothic sacred building in the city was built between 1389 and 1423, the Carmelite Church of Nossa Senhora do Carmo (partly destroyed in 1755, now an archaeological museum). The city center shifted from the castle hill to the river under Manuel I; This was followed by the construction of the Paço da Ribeira Palace with esplanade and shipping pier (the first car café was built there in 1540; destroyed in 1755, redesign of the Terreiro do Paço, today Praça do Comércio with government buildings, triumphal arch and equestrian statue of José I.), the Conceição Velha church (new building after 1755 with a portal from the previous building in rich Emanuel style), the Casa dos Bicos (1523, facade with diamond blocks; upper floors destroyed in 1755) and in the east upstream of the Tejo the Madre de Deus monastery (1509; destroyed 1755, today Museu Nacional do Azulejo).
In the suburb of Belém there are the highlights of Manueline architecture (Jeronimos Monastery and Belém Tower [World Heritage]) with the monumental Jeronimos Monastery (from 1496, by D. Boytac) and the Torre de Belém (1515–21, by F. de Arruda). In the center of the city, the Jesuits founded their single-nave church São Roque in 1555 (according to plans by F. Terzi, splendidly furnished in the following centuries, particularly important the chapel of São João Baptista, which was commissioned by John V from 1742 . was made by over 100 artisans in Rome; Museu de Arte Sacra). Among the few new buildings under Spanish rule are the monastery church of São Vicente de Fora (1590–1627, a major work by Terzi in the style of the Italian late Renaissance based on the floor plan of the church Il Gesù in Rome; restored after 1755; azulejos in the two cloisters) to the east of the fort, including illustrations to fables by La Fontaine, 18th century) and the church of Santa Engrácia (started as a cross-domed church from 1682 and only completed in 1966; today Pantheon).
After the destruction of the earthquake of 1755, the regular reconstruction of the lower town (Baixa) was approved as early as 1756 under S. J. Pombal. This late baroque-classicist building ensemble (»Pombaline style«) is still preserved today and makes Lisbon one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Queen Maria I. donated the construction of the Basilica da Estrela in the district of the same name (1779–89, built on the model of the monastery church of Mafra), the São Carlos theater was opened in the center in 1793 and the new building of the royal Ajuda palace in the suburb of Ajuda in the north-west of the city in 1802 began. In the course of industrialization, workers’ quarters were established on the riverbank from 1870 onwards. In 1865 the Santa Apolónia train station was inaugurated in the east, from 1879 the city was expanded to the north, boulevards (e.g. Avenida da Liberdade, 1.5 km long, 90 m wide), parks and squares (e.g. Praça Marquês de Pombal, Praça dos Restauradores).
The elevator “Elevador de Santa Justa” (1901, by R. Mesnier de Ponsard; with neo-Gothic-Moorish decorative elements) connected the lower town (Baixa) with the higher Bairro Alto with a lifting height of 32 m in the center. In order to meet the increased need for hygiene, apartment building facades and shops were tiled and after 1900 some were decorated with large, polychrome tableus in the Art Nouveau style (including Rua Praia da Vitória). The increasing housing shortage was met in 1919 with the first social housing in the Arco do Cego district. Under A. de Oliveira Salazar there were monumental buildings and monuments of typical fascist character in Lisbon (including Padrão dos Descobrimentos in Belém based on the design by Cottinelli Telmo). Since the 1980s, the city administration has endeavored to protect historical monuments and to restore historical buildings (including the reconstruction of the Chiado district by A. Siza Vieira after the fire in 1988). In 1992 the Centro Cultural (by V. Gregotti, among others) was inaugurated in Belém. In the north of the city, the new university district and several satellite cities have emerged. – 14 km northwest of Lisbon is the former royal summer palace Queluz.
