Praça do Comércio, Lisbon

Lisbon's grandest square opens directly onto the Tagus estuary, a vast arcaded courtyard of yellow façades with one side left open to the water. Praça do Comércio, still widely called Terreiro do Paço, the Palace Yard, covers roughly 175 by 175 metres, making it one of the largest squares in Portugal, and it was built as a deliberate statement of a city rising again after catastrophe.

From the early 16th century the riverbank here was the seat of royal power: King Manuel I moved his residence to the Ribeira Palace on this site, and around it grew the docks, shipyards and offices, such as the Casa da Índia, that handled Portugal's trade with Africa, Asia and the Americas. On 1 November 1755 an earthquake, followed by a tsunami and fire, levelled most of Lisbon and swept away the palace together with its great library. The Marquis of Pombal, chief minister to King José I, directed the rebuilding of the lower town, and the architect Eugénio dos Santos designed the new square as a U-shaped space open to the river, ringed by uniform buildings with arcaded ground floors and ending in two towers that recall the vanished palace tower. Renamed the Square of Commerce, it filled with offices for customs and port administration. At its centre stands the bronze equestrian statue of José I by Joaquim Machado de Castro, unveiled in 1775 and the first monumental royal statue in the city. On the north side a triumphal arch leading into Rua Augusta, part of the original plan, was only completed in the 1870s, crowned by allegorical figures and statues of Portuguese heroes including Vasco da Gama and Pombal himself.

The square has also been a stage for national history. On 1 February 1908 King Carlos I and his heir were shot dead here as their carriage crossed the square, two years before the monarchy fell. For generations the arcades housed government ministries, so that the name of the square came to stand for the Portuguese state itself, and it was declared a National Monument in 1910. Beneath the arcades the café Martinho da Arcada has been serving customers since 1782.

Lisbon, Portugal's capital, spreads over steep hills above the river mouth; the square sits at the foot of the Baixa, the rational grid of streets laid out after the earthquake, which runs north from here to the Rossio.

Getting there

Praça do Comércio lies on the riverfront of central Lisbon, at the southern end of the Baixa. Terreiro do Paço metro station is directly beneath the square, and river ferries leave from the adjoining waterfront. Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS) is about 8 km away.