Viseu is both a city and a municipality in the Dão-Lafões sub-region of Centro Region, Portugal. The municipality, with an area of 507.1 km², has a population of 98,753 (2006), and the city proper has 47,250. The Greater Metropolitan Area of Viseu is also one of the Grandes Áreas Metropolitanas - Greater Metropolitan Areas of Portugal with 354,162 habitants. This important hub in the center of the country is crossed by an important European road link, the A25 (former IP5) that connects it to the seaport of Aveiro and Guarda and then on to Salamanca in Spain. The IP3 and A24, connecting Coimbra with Chaves on the Spanish border, crosses Viseu from south to north. Until the nineteen eighties Viseu had railway connections with the coast, but these were closed. Now the city is one of the largest cities in Europe with no railway connections.