Madalena is a parish

Freguesia

Freguesia is the Portuguese term for a secondary local administrative unit in Portugal and some of its former colonies, and a former secondary local administrative unit in Macau, roughly equivalent to an administrative parish. A freguesia is a subdivision of a concelho, the Portuguese synonym term...

 in the Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 municipality

Municipalities of Portugal

In Portugal, municipality or concelho is the most stable subdivision of Portugal since the foundation of the country.Portugal has an entirely separate system of cities and towns. Cities and towns are located in municipalities, but often do not have the same boundaries, even if built-up is continuous...

 of Tomar

Tomar

Tomar Municipality has a total area of 351.0 km² and a total population of 43,007 inhabitants.The municipality is composed of 16 parishes, and is located in Santarém District...

. It has a total area of 30.56 km² and a population of 3,466 inhabitants (2001). Its population density is 113.4 people per km².

The parish includes the following villages: Caldelas, Caniçal, Carvalhal Grande, Carvalhal Pequeno, Cem Soldos, Charneca do Maxial, Madalena, Maxial, Paço da Comenda, Porto da Lage, Porto Mendo and São Miguel.

According to Pinho Leal in "Portugal Antigo e Moderno" (Portugal Past and Present), the parish was heavily populated in the Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

era. For this author the modern Caldelas is built upon the site of the ancient city of the same name. Other writers say that Caldele was the exact name of the Roman city.