D. Alves
The changes that took place in the internal organisation of the territory in the two last centuries make the knowledge of the national administrative division and the understanding of its evolution essential in Portuguese Contemporary History, especially for comparing historical data over time.
This perspective is still clearer regarding the history of Lisbon. The demographic evolution of the last two centuries and the resulting growth of the city were partially responsible for the profound changes in the administrative structure of the city. The most significant involved a drastic reduction of Lisbon’s municipal limit in mid XIXth century and a deeper transformation in the city parishes a century later. These changes caused serious methodological problems, not only because of the unawareness of the exact number of parishes at each historical moment, but essentially because of the ignorance of its limits.
The primary goal of the work I will present was to rebuild the administrative division of Lisbon for the entire XIXth century. This task was carried out using a GIS, with its CAD tools, and combining digital sources, in vectorial format, representing current parish limits and city streets [1], with historical cartography, for 1826, 1864 and 1909, where old parishes were mapped [2]. Other historical maps, old city guides, contemporary descriptions and fiscal sources were also used.
This work is part of a larger project called SIGMA, financed by the Portuguese Science and Technology Fundation, under the scientific supervision of Luís Espinha da Silveira and was carry out in the Department of History of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, New University of Lisbon [3]. Part of the methodology and some map drawing was prepared with a precious help from Sofia Lucas Martins, for who I’d like to express my thanks.
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