Porto is the second city and fourth most populous municipality in Portugal, located in the northwest of the country and capital of the Porto Metropolitan Area, the North region and the District of Porto. The city is considered a global city range. The municipality, with 41.42 km2 of area, has a population of 237,591 inhabitants (2011) within its administrative limits, being subdivided into seven parishes.
It is the city that gave its name to Portugal - from a very early age (c. 200 BC), when it was called Portus Cale, later becoming the capital of the County of Portucalense, from where Portugal was formed. It is also a city known worldwide for its wine, its bridges and contemporary and ancient architecture, its historical centre, classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, for the quality of its restaurants and its gastronomy, for its main football teams, Futebol Clube do Porto, Boavista Futebol Clube, Sport Comércio e Salgueiros, for its main public university: the University of Porto, placed among the 200 best universities in the World and among the 100 best universities in Europe, as well as for the quality of its hospital centres.
It is the headquarters of the Porto Metropolitan Area, which groups 17 municipalities with 1,757,413 inhabitants in 1,900 km2 of area, with a population density close to 1098 inhabitants/km2, which makes the city the 13th most populous urban area in the European Union and the second most populous area in Portugal. Porto and the Porto Metropolitan Area constitute the structural core of the Northern Region, which has a population of 3,689,609 inhabitants (2011 Censuses), and is therefore the most populous region in Portugal. It comprises 8 subregions or level III units.
Porto, along with the neighbouring municipalities of Vila Nova de Gaia and Matosinhos, forms the Atlantic Front of Porto, which is the most urbanised population nucleus of the Metropolitan Area, located on the coast, bounded to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, with the structural influence of the Douro River estuary, which unites Gaia to Porto. The city is the most important of the highly industrialised coastal zone of the North Region, where most of the most important economic groups in the country are located, such as Altri, Amorim Group/Corticeira Amorim, Banco BPI, BIAL, EFACEC, Frulact, Lactogal, Millennium BCP, Porto Editora, Sone, Unicer or Grupo RAR. The Business Association of Portugal is headquartered in Porto. The Northern Region is the only Portuguese region that exports more than it imports.
Source: WIKIPEDIA
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