Tábua
municipality of Portugal
Tábua (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈtaβu.ɐ] ), officially the Town of Tábua (Portuguese: Vila de Tábua, is a town and municipality of the Coimbra District, in Portugal. In 2021 it had 11,160 inhabitants, in an area of 199.79 square kilometres (77.14 mi2). The town of Tábua is contained within a civil parish with 3,681 inhabitants as of 2021.
Toponymy
Several theories exist about the toponym "Tábua". The traditional belief is that the name Tábua originated from a wooden plank bridge over the Mondego River during the formation of the County of Portugal. However, other locations across Portugal named after wooden bridges typically led to "Ponte de...", "Pontão" or "Barca", rather than "Tábua".
A more recent hypothesis is that the toponym Tábua derives from the Vulgar Latin word "tabula," meaning "board" or "plank," potentially referring to a flat region. This theory is supported by the geographical context, as the municipality is located within the Planalto Beirão (Beira Plateau).
Another hypothesis suggests that the name Tábua originates from the Roman god Tabudico. An inscription dedicated to Tabudico is found on a votive altar currently housed at the Institute of Archaeology of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Coimbra, which reads: "TABUDICO / C. FABIVS. VIATOR / L. A. D. D."
Lastly, "tabua" is also the common name for Typha angustifolia, an aquatic or semi-terrestrial herbaceous plant with a rhizome that thrives in wetlands, lagoons, and waterways.
The public source identifies “Tábua” as municipality of Portugal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tábua, municipality and Portugal.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q988846. VIAF identifies the subject as 243843454. Authority coordinates are 40.367, -8.033. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tábua” 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.