It is a city of Faro district and is home to three parishes of the municipality Alvor, Mexilhoeira Grande and Portimão. The city lies bordered to the north by Monchique, east by Silves and Lagoa, west of Lagos and the south by the vast Atlantic Ocean.

With a prehistoric origin, the human presence in Portimão is witnessed in the archaeological site of Alcalar. It is also known that Phoenician and Carthaginian populations remained in this region, as in other Algarve regions, these have played an important role in trade and culture between the Atlantic, North Africa to the Mediterranean. And despite strong Roman and Arab presence, which developed and evolved this region, only in the fifteenth century it is that Portimão rises as urban core.

At the time of the Portuguese discovery, it is that so far, New Portimão Vila had a great growth and develops as one of the national business expansion poles. But with the 1755 earthquake, Portimão suffer serious damage and consequently stagnated in growth until the nineteenth century, when the industries related to the export of dried fruit, fishing and canning industry, stimulated their flowering.

In 1924, Portimão gets city status. To date the Portimão city is experiencing a new period of economic growth largely based on the tourist industry.