The municipality ( or ) is the second-level administrative subdivision of Portugal, as defined by the 1976 Constitution.
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, with 61 parishes, has the most. 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.
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 Portugal since the foundation of the country in the 12th century. Manuel Lima (2005), 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.
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 unincorporated areas; all the national territory belongs to a municipality, including uninhabited islands: Berlengas to Peniche, Desertas Islands to Santa Cruz, Selvagens Islands to Funchal, and Formigas Islets to Vila do Porto.
Portugal is divided into 18 continental districts () and two autonomous regions (), Azores and Madeira. The table below is the distribution of the municipalities within these districts and the autonomous regions:
Order District/Autonomous Region Municipalities01. Aveiro 02. Beja 03. Braga 04. Bragança 05. Castelo Branco 06. Coimbra 07. Évora 08. Faro 09. Guarda 10. Leiria 11. Lisbon 12. Portalegre 13. Porto 14. Santarém 15. Setúbal 16. Viana do Castelo 17. Vila Real 18. Viseu 19. Azores 20. Madeira
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 The following chart show municipalities (as of 2025) with populations over 100,000. Around 190 municipalities have less than 20,000 inhabitants each.
Rank Municipality Population Land area (km2) Density (people/km2) Metropolitan area1 Lisbon 658,236 100.1 6,579 Lisbon2 Sintra 449,956 319.2 1,4103 Vila Nova de Gaia 323,202 168.5 1,919 Porto4 Porto 273,476 41.4 6,6035 Cascais 242,619 97.4 2,491 Lisbon6 Loures 236,988 167.2 1,4177 Braga 212,635 183.4 1,1598 Amadora 205,517 23.8 8,642 Lisbon9 Almada 202,896 70.2 2,89010 Seixal 198,254 95.5 2,07611 Oeiras 188,056 45.9 4,09912 Odivelas 185,736 26.5 6,99813 Matosinhos 181,930 62.4 2,915 Porto14 Gondomar 170,597 133.9 1,29415 Guimarães 165,554 241.0 68716 Coimbra 156,359 319.4 49017 Vila Franca de Xira 152,007 318.2 478 Lisbon18 Leiria 145,861 565.1 25819 Vila Nova de Famalicão 143,801 201.6 71320 Santa Maria da Feira 142,676 215.9 661 Porto21 Maia 142,129 83.0 1,713 22 Setúbal 141,266 230.3 613 Lisbon23 Barcelos 122,487 378.9 32324 Funchal 113,443 76.1 1,49025 Viseu 109,166 507.1 215
See also
List of municipalities of Portugal Municipality Subdivisions of Portugal
References