page_title: Vila Nova de Gaia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Vila Nova de Gaia / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Vila Nova de Gaia - Historic Section
context_page_description: Vila Nova de Gaia, or simply Gaia, is a city and a municipality in Porto District in Norte Region, Portugal. It is located south of the city of Porto on the other side of the Douro River. The city proper had a population of 178,255 in 2001. The municipality has an area of 168.46 km². and a total population of 302,295 inhabitants, making it the most populous municipality in Norte Region. Gaia along with Porto and 12 other municipalities make up the commonly designated Porto Metropolitan Area.
  The city contains many cellars where port wine is stored and aged. These cellars have become a major tourist attraction.
context_section_description: Vila Nova de Gaia already existed under the Roman Empire as the city of Cale. It developed most likely from a preexistent Celtic Castro, or Neolithic settlement. The origin of the name Cale (or Gale, since in Classical Latin there was not always a clear distinction between the letters "g" and "c") is likely Celtic, from the root "Gall-" with which Celts referred to themselves, similarly to Galicia, Gaul or Galway. 
  The river itself has a Celtic name, Douro (Latinised Durus) after Celtic "dwr", deep water, water or river. In Roman times the bulk of the population probably lived south of the river Douro, and on the north side, there was a smaller settlement around the deep water port which now is the Ribeira neighbourhood of Porto. The name of Porto, in high medieval times Portus Cale, thus stood for the harbour ("portus" in Latin) of the city of Cale. With the important trade of the river Douro, which is easily navigable up to the Régua deep inland, the Porto part of the city came to overgrow Cale, and became the most important part of town, where the Bishopric and the merchants were established.
  With the Moorish invasions in the eighth century, the de facto frontier between the Islamic state and the Christian one came to rest for a considerable period of time on the river Douro. With the constant raids and counter-raids, the town of Cale, or Gaia, was deserted and most of its inhabitants took refuge in Porto in the North side of the river. It is in this period, the tenth century, that the late medieval Lenda de Gaia (Legend of Gaia) is set.
  After the conquest and pacification of the southern side of the Douro river after 1035, with the exodus or expulsion of the Muslim populations, leaving behind semi-abandoned fertile lands, colonists from the north settled in exchange for better feudal contracts with the newly appointed lords. These migrants refounded the old city of Cale or Gaia under the name of Vila Nova de Gaia (new town of Gaia) around the old castle and ruins of "old Gaia".
  The name of the double city of Porto and Gaia was frequently referred to in contemporary documents as "villa de Portucale", and the county of the Kingdom of León which was centered on it was named Condado Portucalense. This county was eventually expanded and after gaining its independence, became the Kingdom of Portugal.
caption: The historic section on the river
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D800", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2019:09:25 16:40:43", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1030", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5543", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "71/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2000", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:09:15 14:11:38", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:09:15 14:11:38", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "540241/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2827819/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "120", "EXIF SubSecTime": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "30", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2623", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "16780511/8192", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "16780511/8192", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "120", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "5000325", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[24, 120, 4, 4]", "EXIF LensModel": "24.0-120.0 mm f/4.0"}