Cividade Hill

Cividade Hill (Portuguese: Monte da Cividade) or Cividade de Terroso Hill with an elevation of 153 metres (502 ft) is one of the two hills next to the city of Póvoa de Varzim in Portugal.

Cividade Hill's most notable feature is Cividade de Terroso in the hilltop. It is an ancient Castro culture town, hence the name of the hill that derives from Latin civitas (city). The walled city thrived since 900 or 800 BC, before being conquered and destroyed by the Roman Republic around 138 BC. Due to its urban protohistoric characteristics, the hilltop is considered to be an acropolis by archaeologists. The acropolis is, currently, owned by Póvoa de Varzim City Hall. In the slope there are villages and walled labyrinth-like farm-fields.

Cividade hill is located in the parish of Terroso, just east of the city. The hill, along with São Félix, was used in the Middle Ages as the boundary of Varzim: Verazim ... subtus mons civitas Terroso discurrentes aquas ad mare, territorio Brachara (June 25, 1202). The expression "subtus mons" is typical on the Portuguese medieval documents and, as it was proved by Ferreira de Almeida, it is not just a topographic dependency, but, especially, an administrative and military dependency.

Cividade, with São Félix Hill, extends from the small Serra de Rates mountain range. It is the second highest hill in Póvoa de Varzim, after São Félix Hill.

Cividade de Terroso was an important city of the Castro culture in North-western Iberian Peninsula, established during the Bronze Age, between 800 and 900 BC, as a result of the displacement of the people inhabiting the fertile plain of Póvoa de Varzim.

The most typical characteristic is its defensive system. The inhabitants had chosen to start living in the hill as a way of protection against attacks and looting by rival tribes. The migrations of Turduli and Celtici proceeding from the South of the Iberian Peninsula heading North were the reason for the improvement of the defensive systems of the castros around 500 BC. Cividade de Terroso is one of the most heavily defensive castros, given that the acropolis was surrounded by three rings of walls. The defensive perimeter seems to include a ditch of about 1 metre (3 feet 3 inches) of depth and width in base of the hill and a surveillance post in São Félix Hill.

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