page_title: History of Lisbon
section_title: 21st century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Lisbon / 21st century
caption_attribution_description: English: Gare do Oriente train station, Lisbon, PortugalDeutsch: Bahnhof Gare do Oriente, Lissabon, PortugalPortuguês: Gare do Oriente, Lisboa, PortugalFrançais&#160;: Station de train Oriente à Lisbonne, Portugal
context_page_description: The history of Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, revolves around its strategic geographical position at the mouth of the Tagus, the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. Its spacious and sheltered natural harbour made the city historically an important seaport for trade between the Mediterranean Sea and northern Europe. Lisbon has long enjoyed the commercial advantages of its proximity to southern and extreme western Europe, as well as to sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas, and today its waterfront is lined with miles of docks, wharfs, and drydock facilities that accommodate the largest oil tankers.
  During the Neolithic period, pre-Celtic peoples inhabited the region; remains of their stone monuments still exist today in the periphery of the city. Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in western Europe, with a history that stretches back to its original settlement by the indigenous Iberians, the Celts, and the eventual establishment of Phoenician and Greek trading posts, followed by successive occupations in the city of various peoples including the Carthaginians, Romans, Suebi, Visigoths, and Moors.
context_section_description: Reforms made by local government in the first years of the 21st century established the administrative region of the Lisbon metropolitan area. Lisbon's metro system was expanded with the addition of several new stations, among them the transportation hub of Gare do Oriente, designed by the Spanish neofuturistic architect, Santiago Calatrava, and finished in time for the Expo '98 world's fair on land east of the city centre in Parque das Nações (Park of Nations). The station has since reached a ridership of 75 million passengers per year. Lisbon's international airport is located in the city centre, but with no room to expand, may soon have problems meeting demand.
  Between 1999 and 2001, Lisbon hosted various world sport championships including the 1999 World Junior Basketball Championship, the 2000 Bowling World Championship, the 2000 Masters Cup in Tennis, the 2001 Cycling World Championships, the 2001 Fencing World Championship, and the 2001 Indoor Athletics World Championships.
  The city acquired the Museu do Design e da Moda (Museum of Design and Fashion) in 2002. This small museum, located in the architecturally distinctive former Banco Nacional Ultramarino building, features displays of fashion and industrial design, grouped by decade. These consist of about a thousand objects of furniture and utilitarian design, as well as 1200 pieces of haute couture representing remarkable moments in high fashion of the 20th and 21st centuries.
  On 3 November 2005, Lisbon hosted the MTV European Music Awards at the Pavilhão Atlântico. The show was opened by a leotard-clad Madonna, who exploded from a shiny disco ball to the tune "Hung Up". Lisbon is also the host city for the Portuguese editions of Rock in Rio, the largest rock festival in the world.
  On 7 July 2007, Lisbon was the site of the election ceremony of the "New 7 Wonders Of The World" in the Estádio da Luz, with live transmission to millions of people around the world.
  The Campo Pequeno bullring (Praça de Touros do Campo Pequeno), Lisbon's bullfighting arena, built between 1890 and 1892 in neo-Mudéjar style, is located in the Campo Pequeno Square by the Avenida da República. After a major renovation, it reopened as a multi-event venue in 2006, designed to be used for various events besides bullfighting. Including an underground shopping centre, restaurants and a parking lot, it features a range of live performances, with many famous bands having performed there.
  Immigrants who came to Lisbon in the early years of the 21st century from the Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP), especially Angola and Guinea, now constitute a large proportion of the city's immigrant population. The majority of them arrived before the economic crisis of 2008 to fill the demand for workers in the service sector and in the construction of large public works projects.
  As in the past, Lisbon has a network of outdoor vegetable gardens (hortas) providing fresh produce to residents of many of the traditional neighbourhoods in the city, although today they are officially sanctioned and regulated. Fado was often performed in the hortas of Mouraria and the Alfama during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
  The Treaty of Lisbon, signed in December 2007, was the premier European Union event held in Portugal. The document was designed to improve the functioning of the Union by amending the Treaty on European Union as well as the treaty establishing the European Community. The most important reforms introduced were mitigating the chances of deadlock in the Council of the European Union, increasing the legislative and budgetary powers of the European Parliament, reducing the number of members of the European Commission, abandoning the three pillars of the European Union, and creating the positions of President of the European Council and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to provide greater consistency and continuity to EU policies.
  The NATO Lisbon Summit of 2010 (19–20 November) convened to cement NATO'S new "Strategic Concept", a plan aiming to implement bette
caption: Plataforma ferroviaria da Gare do Oriente
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