The his­toric town of Guimaraes is asso­ci­at­ed with the emer­gence of the Por­tuguese nation­al iden­ti­ty in the 12th cen­tu­ry. An excep­tion­al­ly well-pre­served and authen­tic exam­ple of the evo­lu­tion of a medieval set­tle­ment into a mod­ern town, its rich build­ing typol­o­gy exem­pli­fies the spe­cif­ic devel­op­ment of Por­tuguese archi­tec­ture from the 15th to 19th cen­tu­ry through the con­sis­tent use of tra­di­tion­al build­ing mate­ri­als and tech­niques.