Fátima, Portugal
freguesia of Portugal
Fátima (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈfatimɐ] ) is a city in the municipality of Ourém and district of Santarém in the Oeste e Vale do Tejo Region of Portugal, with 71.29 km2 of area and 13,212 inhabitants (2021). The homonymous civil parish encompasses several villages and localities of which the city of Fátima is the largest.
The civil parish has been permanently associated with Our Lady of Fátima, a series of 1917 Marian apparitions that were purportedly witnessed by three local shepherd children at the Cova da Iria. The Catholic Church later recognized these events as "worthy of belief". A small chapel was built at the site of the apparition in 1919, and a statue of the Virgin Mary installed. The chapel and statue have since been enclosed within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima, a shrine complex containing two minor basilicas. Associated facilities for pilgrims, including a hotel and medical centre, have also been built over the decades within and around the Marian Shrine. The city has become an important international destination for religious tourists, receiving between 6 and 8 million pilgrims yearly.
History
Name origin
The name of the town and parish is a rendition of the Arabic given name Fátima (فاطمة Fāṭimah) which also happens to be the name of the daughter of Islamic Prophet Muhammad. According to the traditional narrative, Fátima was said to be the name of a Moorish princess kidnapped by a knight, Gonçalo Hermigues, and his companions.
“Fátima, Portugal” enters the record as freguesia of Portugal. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fátima, Portugal and freguesia can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Fátima, Portugal” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Fátima, Portugal and freguesia provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q191133. Authority coordinates are 39.626, -8.666. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1917 and 1919.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Fátima, Portugal”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Fátima, Portugal primary sources, Fátima, Portugal archive and Fátima research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fátima, Portugal”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Fátima, Portugal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.