The civil parish was instituted in on October 9, 1559, when it was de-annexed from the neighbouring parishes of Loreto (which later became Encarnação and Mártires, and included a stretch of land descending from Principe Real to Boavista.
Its territory was one of the more extensive urban areas and, until the end of the 20th Century, one of the most populous.
Its history was linked to Portuguese discoveries in the 14th and 15th Century, and is characterized by a diverse historical, sociological and cultural influence that mingled the aristocratic and popular.

The administrative limits have suffered successive alterations, the last of which (1959) caused controversy by removing many of the emblematic infrastructures of the parish.
This included, specifically, the de-annexation of the area around the Miradouro do Alto de Santa Catarina, an area considered a historical link to the areas past, and which provided in the 16th-17th Centuries assisted the patrol of the Tejo River.

Many figures linked to the cultural or political life of the city (and the country) lived for a time in the parish, including Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, Almeida Garrett, Alexandre Herculano and Camilo Castelo Branco.
Also, in 1847 (on Rua de São Boaventura) Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho was born (and also lived and died), a champion of women's rights, who affirmed,
"The women have power.
It is necessary to take advantage of them in the works of our common civilization.
It is necessary, before everything transforms the education of the woman.
The first thing that a woman did not learn is that she should learn and think.
Dominate her destiny, modify it when it is convenient, because a faculty can just have those whom rationalize and those who know."
The civil parish was instituted in on October 9, 1559, when it was de-annexed from the neighbouring parishes of Loreto (which later became Encarnação and Mártires, and included a stretch of land descending from Principe Real to Boavista. Its territory was one of the more extensive urban areas and, until the end of the 20th Century, one of the most populous. Its history was linked to Portuguese discoveries in the 14th and 15th Century, and is characterized by a diverse historical, sociological and cultural influence that mingled the aristocratic and popular.
The administrative limits have suffered successive alterations, the last of which (1959) caused controversy by removing many of the emblematic infrastructures of the parish. This included, specifically, the de-annexation of the area around the Miradouro do Alto de Santa Catarina, an area considered a historical link to the areas past, and which provided in the 16th-17th Centuries assisted the patrol of the Tejo River.
Many figures linked to the cultural or political life of the city (and the country) lived for a time in the parish, including Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, Almeida Garrett, Alexandre Herculano and Camilo Castelo Branco. Also, in 1847 (on Rua de São Boaventura) Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho was born (and also lived and died), a champion of women's rights, who affirmed,
"The women have power. It is necessary to take advantage of them in the works of our common civilization. It is necessary, before everything transforms the education of the woman. The first thing that a woman did not learn is that she should learn and think. Dominate her destiny, modify it when it is convenient, because a faculty can just have those whom rationalize and those who know."
Santa Catarina (Lisbon)