Fundão () is a city and a municipality in the Castelo Branco District in Portugal. Fundão proper is an old city with 8,369 inhabitants in 2001, situated at the point where the slope of the Gardunha range meets the Cova da Beira plains, 500 metres above sea level. The municipality population in 2021 was 26,509. The area size is 700.20 km². The city of Covilhã is about 20 kilometers to the north by road. The municipality of Fundão is subdivided into 23 civil parishes known as freguesias in Portuguese. History During the Iron Age, from about 1000 B.C. until its destruction by the Romans, there was a Celtic Lusitanian Castro or fortified village in nearby São Brás Mount. The remains of a villa or agricultural manor house, workers houses and other associated buildings from the time of the Roman Empire have been found in the underground of the centre of the current city. This villa was rebuilt as a fortified medieval mansion during the High Middle Ages. The history of Fundão is intimately related to that of its originally Jewish, then New Christian or Marrano, population. Although the place was already mentioned in documents from 1307 referring 32 houses, the bulk of the population only settled after the 1492 Expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, mainly Spanish Jews (sephardic). Close to the border, and already home to significant Jewish minorities the Cova da Beira region, the region received many refugees. They settled in the community of Fundão, which their numbers swelled to that of a city. The influx of Jewish artisans and merchants quickly transformed it into an important commercial and industrial center. With the establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition shortly thereafter, many Jews and New Christians were arrested, tortured, executed or had their possessions expropriated. The commercial dynamism of the city was affected. The place was proclaimed a city in 1580 by its notables, after support for their attempt was declared by Dom António, Prior do Crato, to preserve Portuguese independence against the ambitions of King Philip II of Spain (Philip I of Portugal). The Municipal Council and autonomy were granted in 1747. During the Enlightenment of the late 18th century, under the rule of Marquis of Pombal, the Prime-Minister of Portugal, legal restraints on the New Christians were abolished and rights equiparated to those of the Old Christians. Pombal tried to recreate the industrial