Bairro Alto
Bairro Alto (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈbajʁu ˈaltu]; literally: Upper District) is a central district of the city of Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. Unlike many of the civil parishes of Lisbon, this region can be commonly explained as a loose association of neighbourhoods, with no formal local political authority but social and historical significance to the urban community of Lisbon and of Portugal as a whole.
The bairro or "neighbourhood" resulted from urban expansion in the 16th century, forming outside the walls of the historical city, and is characterized by an almost orthogonal tract (developing from two phases of distinct urbanization).
It is a fundamental quarter of Lisbon, organized into a hierarchical scheme of roads and lanes: the roads, the structural axis, run perpendicular to the river; and the lanes, or secondary axis, cut parallel to the river.
