Benfica (Lisbon)

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Benfica
Coat of arms of Benfica
Parish coat of arms
Municipality Lisbon
Area 7.94 km²
Population
 - Total 38,523 (2001)
 - Density 4,852/km²

Benfica (pron. IPA[bɐ̃ĩ'fikɐ]) is a Portuguese parish, located in the municipality of Lisbon. It has a population of 38,523 inhabitants and a total area of 7.94 Km².

The biggest park of Lisbon, the park of Monsanto, is located in Benfica.

[edit] History

[edit] 20th century

In 1959, the parish was split and gave origin to the parish of São Domingos de Benfica. In this period, Lisbon was experiencing a fast growth, in the 1950s the population of the parish was 17,843 inhabitants, forty years later it exceeded 50,000. However, in the 1990s, the population of Lisbon started to decline, with thousands of people leaving to the suburbs and the parish population declined to the present 38,500 inhabitants.