Municipalities of Portugal

Municipality
Municipality
Also known as:; Municipal Chamber ; Municipal Assembly;
Subdivisions	Freguesia; (civil parish)

The municipality (

município or concelho) is the second-level administrative subdivision of Portugal, as defined by the 1976 Constitution.^[1]

As a general rule, each municipality is further subdivided into

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 of 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 ceremonial 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

constitutional monarchy

.

The concelhos probably formed after the expulsion of 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

There are 308 municipalities in Portugal: 278 in mainland Portugal, 19 in the autonomous region of the Azores, and 11 in 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.

Portugal has no

Formigas Islets to Vila do Porto

.

Portugal is 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:

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

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

The following chart show municipalities (as of 2022) with populations over 100,000.[4] Around 190 municipalities have less than 20,000 inhabitants each.

Rank	Municipality	Population	Land area (km²)	Density (people/km²)	Metropolitan area
1	Lisbon	548,703	84.8	6,430	Greater Lisbon
2	Sintra	388,767	319.2	1,182	Greater Lisbon
3	Vila Nova de Gaia	307,563	170.8	1,769	Greater Porto
4	Porto	240,592	41.3	5,752	Greater Porto
5	Cascais	213 928	97.4	2,106	Greater Lisbon
6	Loures	203,724	169.3	1,214	Greater Lisbon
7	Braga	197,594	183.2	992
8	Almada	178,254	70.0	2,476	Greater Lisbon
9	Matosinhos	176,617	62.2	2,812	Greater Porto
10	Amadora	174,511	23.8	7,376	Greater Lisbon
11	Oeiras	172,742	45.7	3,765	Greater Lisbon
12	Seixal	169,797	95.5	1,654	Greater Lisbon
13	Gondomar	166,900	133.3	1,262	Greater Porto
14	Guimarães	156,277	241.3	655
15	Odivelas	150,366	26.4	5,445	Greater Lisbon
16	Coimbra	142,252	319.0	448
17	Maia	140,041	83.7	1,613	Greater Porto
18	Santa Maria da Feira	138,344	215.1	648	Greater Porto
19	Vila Franca de Xira	137,994	317.7	430	Greater Lisbon
20	Vila Nova de Famalicão	134,883	201.7	663
21	Leiria	130,605	564.7	226
22	Setúbal	122,547	171.9	703	Greater Lisbon
23	Barcelos	116,493	378.9	318
24	Funchal	106,429	76.3	1,469
25	Viseu	100,105	507.1	197

References

^ ^a ^b "7th Constitutional Revision" (PDF). Assembly of the Republic (Portugal). Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 October 2014. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
^ ^a ^b Silveira, Luís (May 2000). "Origins and Evolution of the Portuguese Administrative System in Comparative Perspective". Lisbon, Portugal: Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
^ 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.
^ "População residente (N.º) por Local de residência (NUTS - 2013), Sexo e Grupo etário (Por ciclos de vida); Anual". www.ine.pt (in Portuguese). Statistics Portugal. Retrieved 18 June 2023.

[Cons05-1] "7th Constitutional Revision" (PDF). Assembly of the Republic (Portugal). Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 October 2014. Retrieved 13 August 2014.

[Silveira-2] Silveira, Luís (May 2000). "Origins and Evolution of the Portuguese Administrative System in Comparative Perspective". Lisbon, Portugal: Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

[SOP-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.

[4] "População residente (N.º) por Local de residência (NUTS - 2013), Sexo e Grupo etário (Por ciclos de vida); Anual". www.ine.pt (in Portuguese). Statistics Portugal. Retrieved 18 June 2023.

[1]

[2]

History

Geography

Demographics

See also

References