Portalegre is also the district capital city with the lowest number of inhabitants: 22,369 (there were 24,930 in 2011).

After Portalegre, the biggest decreases in population in the district capitals were in Beja (-6.8 percent), Castelo Branco (-6.8 percent), Guarda (-5.6 percent) and Évora (-5.4 percent), all cities in the interior and Alentejo region, reveal the data released on 28 July by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

The other district capitals in which the resident population decreased since 2011, the year of the previous census, were Santarém (-4.8 percent), Vila Real (-4.3 percent), Viana do Castelo (-3.2 percent), Bragança (-2.2 percent), Porto (-2.4 percent), Lisbon (-1.4 percent) and Coimbra (-1.8 percent).

In the remaining district capitals, the number of residents increased, with Braga recording the highest growth (+6.5 percent).

This is followed by Faro (+3.9 percent), Aveiro (+3.1 percent), Setúbal (+2.1 percent), Leiria (+1.4 percent) and Viseu (+0.4 percent).

In the set of 18 district capitals, the population loss was 0.9 percent (from 2,059,691 in 2011 to 2,042,006 this year).

In the two biggest cities in the Autonomous Regions, Funchal (in Madeira) and Ponta Delgada (in Azores) lost inhabitants with falls of 5.3 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

The 2021 Census registered 105,919 inhabitants in Funchal (there were 111,892 in 2011) and 67,287 in Ponta Delgada (68,809 in 2011), according to preliminary data from the population survey carried out this year by INE.

Portugal currently has 10,347,892 residents, 214,286 less than in 2011, according to the preliminary results of the 2021 Census.