Beja, Portugal
Beja is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of 1139.0 km² and a total population of 34,977 inhabitants.
The municipality is composed of 18 parishes, and is located in the district of Beja.
The present Mayor is José Carreira Marques (Communist) and the President of the Municipal Assembly is Bernardo Barreto (Communist).
The municipal holiday is Maundy Thursday.
It also the capital of the District of Beja
History
Pax-Julia, was its latin name under Roman Empire rule, capital of the southernmost province of Lusitania.
After the barbarian invasions, it became a Visigoth city and bishopry - now with the name of Paca. In the beginning of the 8th century, it fell into Muslim rule, renamed Beja.
Successive attempts of conquest and reconquer for the Christian kings, gradually reduced it into rubbles, falling definitively in Portuguese ownership from 1234. Only with D. Manuel I in 1521 it reached again the status of city, and to head of diocese in 1770, more than a thousand years after the fall of the Visigoth city.
Parishes
- Albernoa
- Baleizão
- Beja (Salvador)
- Beja (Santa Maria da Feira)
- Beja (Santiago Maior)
- Beja (São João Baptista)
- Beringel
- Cabeça Gorda
- Mombeja
- Nossa Senhora das Dores
- Quintos
- Salvada
- Santa Clara de Louredo
- Santa Vitória
- São Brissos
- São Matias
- Trigaches
- Trindade