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For the extent and quality of his legacy, Magalhães Basto was the undisputed greatest historian devoted to the history of Porto in the twentieth century, the city where he was born on March 5, 1894, in the parish of Bonfim. He was the second son of Antonio José de Magalhães Basto and Joaquina de Magalhães Teixeira Basto, capitalists with commercial businesses in Brazil. Raised in typically bourgeois surroundings, he completed his primary and secondary studies at schools in Porto, and then enrolled at the University of Lisbon. There he earned a BA from the Faculty of Law in 1922.
He became the brother-in-law by marriage of Mendes Corrêa, professor in the Faculties of Science and Arts at the University of Porto, who invited him to give up law and start an academic career by the end of that same year. He started by serving as interim assistant to the Geographical Sciences group at the First Faculty of Arts of Porto in early 1923, in recognition of his interdisciplinary focus and interest in historical studies, and he later took on further responsibilities as chair of Political Geography and Economics, as well as those of History of Discoveries and Portuguese Colonization and Palaeography and Diplomacy.
That year he published his first study A fronteira hispano-portuguesa (ensaio de geografia política) (The Spanish-Portuguese Border, a Political Geography Essay). Revealing updated geographical knowledge on the physical and human domains, he revolted against the determinist doctrine of the linear conception of natural borders by the valorisation of "border zones", which he defined as the transitional space between two distinct political and moral realities resulting from natural anthropological and geographical differences.
In 1925, after an offer from Damião Peres, Magalhães Basto was transferred to interim assistant in the Historical Sciences group, also lecturing in Ancient History, Numismatics, General History of Civilization and Colonial Geography. He then moved up in his academic career to the posts of Interim Assistant (1927) and Interim Assistant Professor (1931) of the same group.
