page_title: Viseu
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Viseu / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Igreja da Misericórdia de Viseu
context_page_description: Viseu is a city and municipality in the Centro Region of Portugal and the capital of the district of the same name, with a population of 100,000 inhabitants, and center of the Viseu Dão Lafões intermunipical community, with 267,633 inhabitants.
  Settled during the period of the early Iberian Castro culture, the territory of Viseu was populated by a series of cultures including the Romans, Suebs, Visigoths and Moors. During the Roman occupation of Iberia, Viriathus, rebel leader of the Lusitanians, is assumed to have lived for a time in the vicinity. During the Middle Ages, the city often served as seat for Visigothic nobles, and is considered one of the probable birthplaces of Afonso Henriques, first King of Portugal.
  Viseu is a regional economic hub with a strong wine industry and is the seat of international conglomerate Visabeira. The city is also a cultural center, home to the nationally acclaimed Grão Vasco Museum, seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Viseu, and pole of national universities, including the Catholic University of Portugal.
context_section_description: Viseu is approximately 50 km (31 mi) East of the Atlantic Ocean. Surrounded by a number of mountains – Leomil, Montemuro, Lapa, Arada, Estrela and Caramulo – the tops of which are covered with thick layers of snow in Winter time, the district is crossed by a network of rivers and streamlets.
  The city of Viseu has an almost central position in relation to the District lying on the so-called Viseu Plateau (in Portuguese Planalto de Viseu). It is surrounded by a mountainous system constituted to the north by the Leonil, Montemuro, and Lapa hills, to the northeast by the Arado hills, to the south and southeast by the Serra da Estrela and the Lousã hills and to the west by the Caramulo hills.
  The Municipality is characterized by an irregular surface with altitudes ranging between 400 and 700 metres (1,300 and 2,300 feet). With a rough terrain, it has numerous water courses. These are found in three basins: the Vouga, the Dão and the Paiva.
caption: The Church of Mercy or Igreja da Misericórdia.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S80", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:05:07 20:18:43", "Image Artist": "Andreas Trepte", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Copyright": "This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. Official license.\n\nPlease credit this photo Andreas Trepte, Marburg.", "Image ExifOffset": "618", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1182", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7489", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:01:11 13:09:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:01:11 13:09:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "149/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "139/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "1", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "80", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2653", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2267", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1632000/143", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1224000/107", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Bracket", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}