Braga

The Callaici Bracari, a Celtic people of the Castro culture, held the hill forts of this region before Rome. The Romans founded the civitas of Bracara Augusta in 16 BC; it grew through the 1st and 2nd centuries and around the end of the 3rd became the capital of the Roman province of Gallaecia. After 410 the Suebi made it the capital of their kingdom, and their king Rechiar was the first Germanic ruler in Europe to accept Catholic Christianity. Its archbishops later claimed primacy over the whole Spanish church and still hold the title of Primate.

After a period of decline around the time of the Muslim conquest, the bishopric was restored in 1070 and the cathedral rebuilt, and between 1093 and 1147 Braga was the seat of the Portuguese court. Afonso Henriques rewarded the archbishops' support by giving them the city as a near-personal fief, a status that lasted until the Republic and earned the area the nickname "Paiz Bracarense". Missing out on the wealth of the Discoveries, the city was transformed instead by its archbishops: Diogo de Sousa turned the medieval town into a Renaissance city in the 16th century, and in the 18th the archbishops of the House of Braganza employed André Soares and Carlos Amarante to rebuild it in Baroque style.

French troops under Soult took the town in 1809. The castle was demolished in 1905, apart from its keep, and in May 1926 General Gomes da Costa marched from Braga on Lisbon in the coup that ended the First Republic. After decline in the 20th century, the city bounced back from the 1980s with rural migration, and Bom Jesus was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2019.

Braga has been the seat of Portugal's oldest archdiocese for centuries, and its calendar still turns on the church. Holy Week is its most famous season, with processions through the old town that were declared of interest to tourism in 2011, and the city is a stop on the Portuguese Way to Santiago. On the hills east of the centre, the stairway of Bom Jesus do Monte and the shrine of Sameiro — the largest Marian sanctuary complex in the country after Fátima — draw pilgrims and visitors alike.

São João is the other great occasion. Its first records date from 1515, when the city council first took on its organisation, though many of its elements are older; on the night of 23 June, the eve of St John's Day, the people of Braga come out into the streets.

The University of Minho has given the city a younger face. Braga was European Youth Capital in 2012, students fill the bars around the campus on Wednesday academic nights, and the restored Theatro Circo of 1915 is the main stage for theatre, film, music and dance. Football means Sporting Braga, nicknamed the Arsenalistas for shirts resembling Arsenal's, who reached the Europa League final in 2011 and play in a stadium carved out of a quarry. Their rivalry with Vitória of Guimarães, the Derby do Minho, divides the region.

The municipality had about 213,000 residents in 2025, and its urban area is the third most populous in Portugal after the Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas. It is a young place by Portuguese standards: around a third of its people were recorded as under 25. Growth between 1991 and 2001 came mainly in the older suburban parishes. Alongside Portuguese residents there are Brazilians, Africans from the former colonies, Chinese and Eastern Europeans, and a new wave of Brazilian immigration has continued into this century.

The economy has moved well beyond the church. Software firms such as PRIMAVERA BSS, the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, and automotive electronics centres run by Bosch and Aptiv have made Braga one of the country's technology centres, closely tied to the University of Minho; construction and metalworking remain important too. Many of the city's extra homes are temporary residences, mostly for students, migrant workers and professionals working in the city.

Growth has brought strain. The city faces a housing crisis and needs better public transport and infrastructure — the central issues of the 2025 municipal elections. Daily life is built around the café, the long lunch and the evening stroll along Avenida Central, and TUB buses tie the outer parishes to the centre.

Braga's best-known dish is bacalhau à Narcisa, also called bacalhau à Braga: fried pieces of salt cod served with thin slices of potato and onion fried in the same olive oil, flavoured with bay leaves and cloves. Despite the name, the recipe was created by Dona Eusébia, who kept the name of the tavern she took over from a woman called Narcisa; the dish is also known as bacalhau à minhota.

The city's famous sweet is the pudim Abade de Priscos. It is one of the few recipes the abbot of Priscos passed on to the public, a rich pudding unusual for including bacon fat as well as fifteen egg yolks and a glass of port, and it was a finalist in the 7 Wonders of Portuguese Gastronomy. Like the rest of the north, the city also eats rojões, sarrabulho and caldo verde, and drinks vinho verde with meals.

Eating out divides between the traditional restaurants of the old town, the cafés around Avenida Central and the Arcada, and the cheaper bars and restaurants around the university, which keep prices down for the city's large student population.