Loures

Loures () is a city and a municipality in Portugal which is part of the District and Metropolitan area of Lisbon. It is the fifth most populous municipality in the country, with a total population of 201,632.

==History== thumb|235px|left|The historical Church of Loures, in the centre of urban centre of the town of Loures There was early human settlement in the Loures area dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period, as evidenced by findings at the Cave of Pego do Diabo and the Cave of Salemas. Several Neolithic burial chambers have been identified, such as the Anta de Carcavelos and the Anta do Alto da Toupeira. Loures was a Roman settlement during the 1st millennium, based in a cemetery that eventually became the site of the first church. It was also a region notable for the presence of many castros, before the Roman occupation; the Romans influenced many of these settlers to abandon the foothills and begin occupying the fertile lowlands for economic reasons. After the Romans, the Visigoths began occupying the territory, followed by the Moors (after the 8th century).