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In Portugal, municipality (município) or concelho (meaning "council") is the most stable subdivision of Portugal since the foundation of the country. A list of the current municipalities can be found in: list of municipalities of Portugal.

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). Usually, a municipality has the name of its biggest town or city, or at least, of its historically most important town or city. The municipality is, usually, much larger than the city or town after which it is named.

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.

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 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. By the 19th century, the republicans promised a federal organization for the Portuguese territory—that the country would become a municipal republic. When the Republic was formed, however, they did not adopt what they promised for almost half a century.

Later in the end of the 20th century, democracy has granted more autonomy to municipalities and the formation of two super municipalities, known as áreas metropolitanas (meaning "metropolitan areas"), for the two major cities of the country (Lisbon and Porto).

[edit] Overview

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

[edit] History and division of the municipalities

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.

As a general rule, each municipality is further subdivided into parishes (Portuguese: 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: 89. Corvo is, by law, the only municipality with no parishes.

Since the creation of a democratic local administration in 1976, after the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, the Portuguese municipalities have been ruled by a bicameral system. 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. The parishes are administrated by a parish assembly. Traditionally, the north and the autonomous regions are politically more conservative, while the south and the region of Lisbon are dominated by the Left.

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.

[edit] Most populous municipalities of Portugal

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

[edit] See also

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