Porto, Norte Region, Portugal

🇵🇹 Porto or Oporto is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas.

Located along the Douro River estuary in northern Portugal, Porto is one of the oldest European centres, and its core was proclaimed a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996, as "Historic Centre of Porto, Luiz I Bridge and Monastery of Serra do Pilar". The historic area is also a National Monument of Portugal. The western part of its urban area extends to the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean. Its settlement dates back many centuries, when it was an outpost of the Roman Empire. Its combined Celtic-Latin name, Portus Cale, has been referred to as the origin of the name Portugal, based on transliteration and oral evolution from Latin. In Portuguese, the name of the city includes a definite article: o Porto ("the port" or "the harbor"), which is where its English name "Oporto" comes from.

Port wine, one of Portugal's most famous exports, is named after Porto, since the metropolitan area, and in particular the cellars of Vila Nova de Gaia, were responsible for the packaging, transport, and export of fortified wine. In 2014 and 2017, Porto was elected The Best European Destination by the Best European Destinations Agency. Porto is on the Portuguese Way path of the Camino de Santiago.

Economy Porto plus the conurbation to which it belongs and has Porto municipality as its central core forming the nucleus of the conurbation, is a major industrial and financial centre of both Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula. As the most important city in the heavily industrialised north-west, many of the largest Portuguese corporations from diverse economic sectors, like Altri, Ambar, Amorim, Bial, BPI, Cerealis, CIN, Cofina, EFACEC, Frulact, Lactogal, Millennium bcp, Porto Editora, RAR, Sonae, Sonae Indústria, and Super Bock Group, are headquartered in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Porto, most notably, in the core municipalities of Maia, Matosinhos, Porto, and Vila Nova de Gaia.

The city's former stock exchange (Bolsa do Porto) was transformed into the largest derivatives exchange of Portugal, and merged with Lisbon Stock Exchange to create the Bolsa de Valores de Lisboa e Porto, which eventually merged with Euronext, together with Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris stock and futures exchanges. The building formerly hosting the stock exchange is currently one of the city's touristic attractions, with the Salão Árabe (Arab Room in English) being its major highlight. The Banco Português de Fomento (BPF), a Portuguese state-owned development bank established in 2020, is headquartered in Porto.

Porto hosts a popular Portuguese newspaper, Jornal de Notícias. The building where its offices are located (which has the same name as the newspaper) was at a time one of the tallest in the city (it has been superseded by a number of modern buildings which have been built since the 1990s).

Porto Editora, one of the biggest Portuguese publishers, is also located in Porto. Its dictionaries are among the most popular references used in the country, and the translations are very popular as well.

The economic relations between the city of Porto and the Upper Douro River have been documented since the Middle Ages. However, they were greatly deepened in the modern ages. Indeed, sumach, dry fruits and nuts and the Douro olive oils sustained prosperous exchanges between the region and Porto. From the riverside quays at the river mouth, these products were exported to other markets of the Old and New World. However, the greatest lever to interregional trade relations resulted from the commercial dynamics of the Port wine (Vinho do Porto) agro-industry. It decidedly bolstered the complementary relationship between the large coastal urban centre, endowed with open doors to the sea, and a region with significant agricultural potential, especially in terms of the production of extremely high quality fortified wines, known by the world-famous label Port. The development of Porto was also closely connected with the left margin of River Douro in Vila Nova de Gaia, where is located the amphitheatre-shaped slope with the Port wine cellars.

The city is very much the gateway to Portugal's northern region as well as the northern and western areas of Spain. Within a two-hour drive of Porto's airport there are four Unesco World Heritage sites and popular Spanish tourist hotspots such as Santiago de Compostela. In a study concerning competitiveness of the 18 Portuguese district capitals, Porto was the worst-ranked. The study was made by Minho University economics researchers and was published in Público newspaper on 30 September 2006. The best-ranked cities in the study were Évora, Lisbon and Coimbra. Nevertheless, the validity of this study was questioned by some Porto notable figures (such as local politicians and businesspersons) who argued that the city proper does not function independently but in conurbation with other municipalities. A 2007 ranking published in Expresso ranked Porto as the third best city to live in Portugal – tied with Évora and below Guimarães and Lisbon.

The Porto metropolitan area had a GDP amounting to $43.0 billion, and $21,674 per capita.

Education: University Porto has several institutions of higher education, the largest one being the state-managed University of Porto (Universidade do Porto), which is the second largest Portuguese university, after the University of Lisbon, with approximately 28,000 students and considered one of the 100 best Universities in Europe. There is also a state-managed polytechnic institute, the Instituto Politécnico do Porto (a group of technical colleges), and private institutions like the Lusíada University of Porto, Universidade Fernando Pessoa (UFP), the Porto's Higher Education School of Arts (ESAP- Escola Superior Artística do Porto) and a Vatican state university, the Portuguese Catholic University in Porto (Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Porto) and the Portucalense University in Porto (Universidade Portucalense – Infante D. Henrique). Due to the recognition, potential for employment and higher revenue, there are many students from the entire country, particularly from the north of Portugal, attending a college or university in Porto.

For foreigners wishing to study Portuguese in the city there are a number of options. As the most popular city in Portugal for ERASMUS students, most universities have facilities to assist foreigners in learning the language. There are also several private language learning institutions in the city.