Municipalities of Portugal

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]

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.

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.

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