Although there are no known traces of Ovar's distant past, it is thought to have been inhabited since prehistoric times, as it presented favorable conditions for the establishment of primitive human communities.
There are only news of the populations of Ovar, from the 11th century on, as far as we know, the Ovar cluster arose from the merger of a number of nearby villages, the most important being Ovar and Cabanões.
Land of farmers, fishermen, salt traders and craftsmen, Ovar has been growing and gaining importance over the centuries. However, the great boost to the population growth of the area occurred from the eighteenth century, largely due to the introduction of new fishing techniques (the Xávega Art) and salting and conservation of fish.
The difficulties experienced by the inhabitants of Ovar in their daily struggle led many vareiros to emigrate. Some spread through the various ports of the Portuguese coast (to the Algarve), others walked the difficult and tortuous paths of Beiras and Trás-os-Montes. The more adventurous crossed the Atlantic and tried their luck in the Vera Cruz Lands.
In the 20th century, with industrialization accelerating mainly from the 1950s and 1960s, Ovar became a totally different municipality, where more than half of the active population is employed in the secondary sector, profoundly subverting the secular rural and fishing situation.
Currently, Ovar is an industrial municipality with a wide range of activities ranging from textile and clothing to metallurgical and metal products, from tannin to the production of rations and cordoaria, from electrical material to car assembly or to the manufacture of components.
Despite the industrial development and the consequent urbanization, Ovar also presents vast areas conducive to the most diverse type of tourist activities: kilometers of beaches framed by pine forest and the unique beauty of the Ria de Aveiro and Barrinha de Esmoriz.
The gastronomy highlights the ovar sponge cake, along with the fish dishes of the river.
Currently, in Ovar, we are seeking to achieve a balanced development, with a consequent growth of the trade and services sector that ensures a growing well-being for the population. This balanced development, combined with concerns of environmental preservation and urban development, will certainly be one of the factors that will make Ovar an increasingly attractive and future-vision municipality.
The Municipality of Ovar has an extension of 147.5 km², broken down by five parishes, with a resident population, in 2021, of 54,953 inhabitants. from Porto, 88 km from Coimbra and 282 km from Lisbon.
Ovar is also part of the Intermunicipal Community of the Aveiro Region, which corresponds to the territory of Baixo Vouga, suffering a strong influence from the main socio-economic dynamics of this region. especially within its "crown of dispersed settlement, high density and strong industrialization", limited by Viana do Castelo to the north, Braga-Amarante to the east and Aveiro to the south.
The accessibility and transport system plays a decisive role in the organization of a territory, generating itself around these dynamic systems of agglomeration that are pressing for local socio-economic development. it is verified that for the growth of the different design clusters are determinant the different viable axes that cross the municipal territory.
Despite the benefits of its roads and their value in terms of the connection between the two largest cities in the country, they also represent, for the municipality, some constraints, especially in terms of local mobility. There is therefore no urban transport network.
Source: Ovar Town Hall