Coimbra

Coimbra had 140,796 residents at the 2021 census across 319 square kilometres, making it the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto and Braga, with around 460,000 people in its intermunicipal community. It is the largest city of its district and of the Central Region. Archaeological structures survive here from far back, but the university on the hill is what defines the town. It sets the calendar, fills the streets in term and empties them in August, and gives the upper city its whole shape.