| Santa Catarina | |
| Settlement Type: | Civil Parish |
| Etymology: | Santa Catarina, Portuguese for Saint Catherine, referring to Catherine of Alexandria |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | Portugal |
| Subdivision Type1: | Region |
| Subdivision Name1: | Lisbon |
| Subdivision Type2: | Sub-region |
| Subdivision Name2: | Lisbon |
| Subdivision Type3: | District |
| Subdivision Name3: | Lisbon |
| Subdivision Type4: | Municipality |
| Subdivision Name4: | Lisbon |
| Parts Type: | Localities |
| Parts Style: | para |
| P1: | Avenida D. Carlos I |
| P2: | Calçada do Combro |
| P3: | Rua da Rosa |
| P4: | Rua da Santa Catarina |
| P5: | Rua do Poço dos Negros |
| P6: | Rua do Século |
| Coordinates: | 38.7114°N -9.1482°W |
| Leader Title: | Mayor |
| Leader Name: | Maria Irene dos Santos Lopes |
| Leader Title1: | President Assembleia |
| Leader Name1: | João Manuel Vidal Nabais |
| Government Type: | LAU |
| Governing Body: | Freguesia/Junta Freguesia |
| Established Title: | Settlement |
| Established Title1: | Parish |
| Established Date1: | 9 October 1559 |
| Established Title2: | Civil Parish |
| Established Date2: | 28 November 1684 |
| Area Total Km2: | .21 |
| Elevation M: | 39 |
| Population As Of: | 2001 |
| Population Total: | 4081 |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Timezone1: | WET |
| Utc Offset1: | 0 |
| Timezone1 Dst: | WEST |
| Utc Offset1 Dst: | +1 |
| Postal Code Type: | Postal Zone |
| Postal Code: | 1200-153 Lisboa |
| Area Code: | (+351) 213 XXX XXX |
| Blank Name: | Patron Saint |
| Blank Info: | Santa Catarina |
| Blank1 Name: | Parish Address |
| Blank1 Info: | Largo Dr. António de Sousa Macedo 1200-153 Lisboa |
| Website: | http://jf-santacatarina.pt |
Santa Catarina (English: Saint Catherine) is a former parish (freguesia) in the municipality of Lisbon, Portugal. At the administrative reorganization of Lisbon on 8 December 2012 it became part of the parish Misericórdia.[1] Its area is 0.21 km2, and its population exceeds 4081 inhabitants (density 19433 inhabitants/km2).
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 parish is part of a mountainous area, part of the Bairro Alto, that descends south toward the Tejo, and west to toward the parish of São Bento, cutting the Calçada do Combro, supposedly the principal roadway in the formation of Lisbon, and where today is concentrated the largest group of architecturally significant buildings in the region. In the northern part of the parish is a scattering of small shops, artesian businesses, typo-graphs with a long tradition of influence on political life, bistros and coffee shops, while closer to the river, there are fewer businesses.
Santa Catarina is a nucleus of a rich heritage of architecture, not just in quantity, but also in the importance historically. Most of the buildings, if not the facades, are representative of the 18th Century-style construction, while many religious sanctuaries have longer histories.