Municipalities of Portugal

The municipality (Portuguese: município or concelho) is the second-level administrative subdivision of Portugal, as defined by the 1976 Constitution.[1]

Municipality
Also known as: Concelho
Category	2nd-level administrative division
Location	Portugal
Found in	Administrative region Autonomous region
Created	Middle Ages
Number	308
Populations	451–529,485
Areas	7.9–1,720.6 km²
Government	Municipal Chamber Municipal Assembly
Subdivisions	Freguesia (Civil Parish)

As a general rule, each municipality is further subdivided into parishes (freguesias); the municipalities in the north of the country usually have a higher number of parishes. Six municipalities are composed of only one parish, and Barcelos is the municipality with most parishes, with 61. Corvo is, by law, the only municipality with no parishes.

Since the creation of a democratic local administration, in 1976, the Portuguese municipalities have been ruled by a system composed by an executive body (the municipal chamber) and a deliberative body (the municipal assembly). The municipal chamber is the executive body and is composed of the president of the municipality and a number of councillors proportional to the municipality's population. The municipal assembly is composed of the presidents of all the parishes that compose the municipality, as well as by a number of directly elected deputies, at least equal to the number of parish presidents plus one. Both bodies are elected for four years.[1]

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 they are continuously built up. There are around twice as many cities and towns as there are municipalities.

History

The municipality has been the most stable subdivision of Portugal since the foundation of the country in the 12th century.[2][3] They have their origin in the foral, a legal document, issued by the King of Portugal, which assigned privileges to a town or a region. The present subdivisions have their origins in the 19th century after the administrative reforms conducted by the middle of the 19th century by the governments of the constitutional monarchy.

The concelhos probably formed after the expulsion of the Visigothic rulers by the Moors during the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. Towns were thus left free to govern themselves, and the population started to organize in councils (concelhos in Portuguese) in order to govern the town and surrounding lands. These were also a reminder of Roman municipalities.

The existence since the Middle Ages of a large number of small municipalities with no financial resources and without people qualified to take part in municipal councils caused the stagnation of their growth. The Liberal revolution of 1836, resulted in the suppression/annexation of many of these smaller municipalities, which allowed the infusion of new revenues and facilitated growth in population and size.[2]

Geography

See also: List of municipalities of Portugal

There are 308 municipalities in Portugal: 278 in mainland Portugal and 30 in the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira. They are usually named for their biggest city, or at least, their historically most important city or town. However, the municipality is not synonymous with the city (or urban centre), and can include various towns or cities. In Portugal, cities/towns are a social distinction based on population size and associated services, and have no legal representation in law or constitution.

Before the 2013 local government reforms, Portugal was divided into 18 continental districts (Portuguese: distritos) and two autonomous regions (Portuguese: regiões autónomas), Azores and Madeira. The table below is the distribution of the municipalities within these districts and the autonomous regions:

The 18 districts and 2 autonomous regions of Portugal, subdivided into their municipalities.

Order	District/Autonomous Region	Municipalities
01.	Aveiro	19
02.	Beja	14
03.	Braga	14
04.	Bragança	12
05.	Castelo Branco	11
06.	Coimbra	17
07.	Évora	14
08.	Faro	16
09.	Guarda	14
10.	Leiria	16
11.	Lisbon	16
12.	Portalegre	15
13.	Porto	18
14.	Santarém	21
15.	Setúbal	13
16.	Viana do Castelo	10
17.	Vila Real	14
18.	Viseu	24
19.	Azores	19
20.	Madeira	11

The biggest municipalities are those located in rural and inland areas where the dominating property type is the latifundia, such as Beja, Évora or Portalegre in the south, and also in other less populated areas, such as Bragança or Castelo Branco.

The most populous municipalities are those located near the sea, and especially around the metropolitan areas of Lisbon, Porto and Braga, while the less populous municipalities are located in the inland regions of Alentejo and Trás-os-Montes. The municipalities with the lowest population densities are also found in these inland regions, with smaller populations distributed over a greater area.

Demographics

This chart gives the number of inhabitants in the municipality area and the area is in km² (only for populations over 100,000).

Rank	Municipality	Population	Land Area	Density	Metropolitan area
1	Lisbon	545,245	84.8	6,430	Greater Lisbon
2	Sintra	377,249	319.2	1,182	Greater Lisbon
3	Vila Nova de Gaia	302,092	170.8	1,769	Greater Porto
4	Porto	237,559	41.3	5,752	Greater Porto
5	Loures	205,577	169.3	1,214	Greater Lisbon
6	Cascais	205,117	97.4	2,106	Greater Lisbon
7	Braga	181,819	183.2	992
8	Amadora	175,558	23.8	7,376	Greater Lisbon
9	Matosinhos	174,931	62.2	2,812	Greater Porto
10	Almada	173,298	70.0	2,476	Greater Lisbon
11	Oeiras	172,063	45.7	3,765	Greater Lisbon
12	Gondomar	168,205	133.26	1,262	Greater Porto
13	Guimarães	158,108	241.3	655
14	Seixal	157,981	95.5	1,654	Greater Lisbon
15	Odivelas	143,755	26.4	5,445	Greater Lisbon
16	Coimbra	143,052	319.0	448
17	Santa Maria da Feira	139,393	215.1	648	Greater Porto
18	Vila Franca de Xira	136,510	317.7	430	Greater Lisbon
19	Maia	135,049	83.70	1,613	Greater Porto
20	Vila Nova de Famalicão	133,804	201.7	663
21	Leiria	127,468	564.7	226
22	Setúbal	120,791	171.9	703	Greater Lisbon
23	Barcelos	120,492	378.9	318
24	Funchal	112,015	76.25	1,469

See also

• List of municipalities of Portugal
• Municipality
• Subdivisions of Portugal

References

1. "7th Constitutional Revision" (PDF). Assembly of the Republic (Portugal). Archived from the original (pdf) on 22 October 2014. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
2. Silveira, Luís (May 2000). "Origins and Evolution of the Portuguese Administrative System in Comparative Perspective". Lisbon, Portugal: Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
3. Manuel Lima (2005), "Divisões Administrativas de Portugal: Um olhar pela diversidade da divisão territorial portuguesa" (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on 5 March 2011. Retrieved 2011-03-20.