Riba de Ave (also known as Riba d'Ave) is a Portuguese town located in the municipality of
Vila Nova de Famalicão
Vila Nova de Famalicão (), also known as Famalicão, is a Portuguese town in the Braga District and the sub-region of Ave (intermunicipal community), Vale do Ave. The population of ''Vila Nova'' was created in 1205 with the charter given by the K ...
. The population in 2011 was 3,425,
[Instituto Nacional de Estatística]
/ref> in an area of 2.76 km².[Áreas das freguesias, concelhos, distritos e país]
/ref>
The town has existed since before Portugal became a country, although it has never been more than a tiny village in the Ave Valley. It's the only place in the region that has maintained its name since medieval times.
The town only started to develop at the end of the 19th century when a textile industrial, Narciso Ferreira, settled there and created one of the first textile factories of the Ave Valley, Sampaio Ferreira. He was very successful and Riba de Ave was, for the better part of the 20th century one of the richest villages of the region. However the successive economic crisis proved fatal for most of the town's industry.
References
Towns in Portugal
Freguesias of Vila Nova de Famalicão
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