Municipalities of Portugal

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

In Portugal, municipality (município) 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. In total there are around twice as many cities and towns as there are municipalities.

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. Five municipalities are composed of only one parish, and Barcelos is the municipality with most parishes, with 89. Corvo is, by law, the only municipality with no parishes.

History

The municipality has been the most stable subdivision of Portugal since the foundation of the country in the 12th century. They have their origin in the foral, a legal document, issued by the king, which assigned privileges to a town or a region. The present subdivisions have their origins in the 19th century.

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, 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.

Most municipalities have their origin in the foral, a legal document, issued by the king, 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 19th century, by the governments of the Constitutional Monarchy.

In 1910, the Republic was instaured in Portugal. By the end of 19th century, the republicans promised a federal organization for the Portuguese territory — that the country would become a municipal republic. However, when the Republic was formed, they did not adopt what they promised for almost half a century.

Later in the end of the 20th century, democracy has granted some autonomy to municipalities. 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, and by a number of directly elected deputies which is at least equal to the number of parish presidents plus one. Both bodies are elected to a 4-year term.

Traditionally, the north and the autonomous regions are politically more conservative, while the south and the region of Lisbon are dominated by the left.

In 1991, two áreas metropolitanas (meaning "metropolitan areas") were created for the two major cities of the country (Lisbon and Porto).

Geography

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

Portugal is divided into 18 districts (Portuguese: distritos) and 2 autonomous regions (Portuguese: regiões autónomas), Azores and Madeira. The districts and autonomous regions are further sub-divided into 308 municipalities (Portuguese: municípios or concelhos). The municipality is, usually, much larger than the city or town after which it is named.

District / Autonomous region	Municipalities
1. Aveiro	19
2. Beja	14
3. Braga	14
4. Bragança	12
5. Castelo Branco	11
6. Coimbra	17
7. Évora	14
8. Faro	16
9. 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. Açores	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

Denotes the number of inhabitants in the municipality area; area is in km²; only for populations of over 100,000 inhabitants.

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

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