Administrative divisions of Portugal

Since 1976, Portugal conceded political autonomy to its North Atlantic archipelagos (the Azores and Madeira) due to their distance, isolation, geographical context and socio-economic circumstances. The regional autonomies have their own organic laws, regional governments and administration, overseen by a Regional Government (Governo Regional), that constitutes a Regional Cabinet, comprising a President (Presidente do Governo Regional) and several Regional Secretaries (Secretários Regionais). Their legislatures are designated Legislative Assembly.

A plan to divide mainland Portugal in eight regions was defeated in a referendum in 1998.[3] The metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto were created in 1991.[5] A law passed in 2003 supported the creation of more metropolitan areas, urban communities and other associations of municipalities,[6] but a law passed in 2008 abolished these, converting them into intermunicipal communities.[7][5] Finally in law 75/2013 of September 2013 the current two types of administrative regions were defined:[8]

• metropolitan areas (áreas metropolitanas) and
• intermunicipal communities (comunidades intermunicipais).

The Greater Metropolitan Area of Lisbon extending across the Tagus River and Estuary

The sister municipalities of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia, extending across the Douro River

São João da Madeira, one of the five municipalities with only one civil parish, and the smallest municipality in Portugal in area.

The Metropolitan Areas are territorial units formed by grouping municipalities, in order to economize on municipal investments and services. As of 2014, there are two metropolitan areas that correspond to Level III NUTS regions:[8]

• The Lisbon metropolitan area (Área Metropolitana de Lisboa), consisting of 18 municipalities with a total population (2011 census) of 2,821,876
• The Porto metropolitan area (Área Metropolitana do Porto), consisting of 17 municipalities with a total population (2011 census) of 1,759,524

The intermunicipal communities replaced the urban communities, the intermunicipal communities for general purposes and some metropolitan areas that were created in 2003,[5][6][9] and abolished in 2008.[7][5] The territories of the intermunicipal communities are (roughly) based on the NUTS III statistical regions. As of 2014, there are 21 intermunicipal communities:[8]

View of Coimbra, one of the two oldest municipalities in Portugal.

A beach in Vila Nova de Milfontes, part of the largest municipality of Portugal in area: Odemira.

Vila do Corvo, by law, the only municipality to have no civil parish, and the smallest municipality in Portugal in population.

Apart from the national territory, that includes mainland Portugal and the two archipelagos, the municipalities (municípios, colloquially known as concelhos) have been the most constant territorial subdivision in the past 900 years.[4][3] While a term for municipality (concelho) appeared in the 13th century, to "express a community constituted in a territory of varying extensions, whose residents – the neighbours of the municipality – are granted major or minor administrative autonomy", the territorial division predates its use.[10] Preceding the nation's independence, the oldest of the larger municipalities still in existence Coimbra and Santarém were founded in 1085 e 1095, respectively. São João da Pesqueira (in the district of Viseu) is the oldest Portuguese municipality, founded in 1055.

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 (câmara municipal) is the executive body, and is composed of a president of the municipality and a number of councillors whose number depends on the municipality's population. The municipal assembly (assembleia municipal) is composed of the presidents of all the civil parishes plus a number of directly elected representatives that has to be at least equal to the number of civil parish presidents plus one, and which otherwise depends on the municipal population.[2]

There are 308 municipalities in Portugal. They are usually named for their biggest city, or at least, their historically most important city or town. However, the municipality is usually much larger than the city or town after which it is named. The largest in area is Odemira with 1720.60 km², the smallest is São João da Madeira with an area of 7.94 km².[11]

Nearly all municipalities are subdivided into civil parishes. Barcelos is the municipality with the largest number of civil parishes (61).[8] There are six municipalities that have only one civil parish: São João da Madeira, Alpiarça, Barrancos, Castanheira de Pera, Porto Santo (Madeira) and São Brás de Alportel.[3][8] The municipality of Corvo (comprising the Corvo Island in the Azores) is the only Portuguese municipality without a civil parish.[3][12]

The parish, in contrast with the municipalities, had their base in the ecclesiastical divisions that "had its origin in the fact that neighbours professed the same religion and professed their faith and divinity in the same temple".[10] Between 1216 and 1223, Afonso II of Portugal began a process of legitimizing the Portuguese territory by conferring charters to nobles, clergy and municipal chambers (which would not be completed until after 1249 (under Afonso III of Portugal), making the parish the smallest division. From the 19th century freguesia began to refer to the civil/administrative entity, while the paróquia (Latin and 19th-century Portuguese: parochia) became affiliated with the religious entity.

Since the creation of a democratic local administration, in 1976, the Portuguese parishes have been ruled by a system composed by an executive body (the junta de freguesia, "parish board") and a deliberative body (the assembleia de freguesia, "parish assembly"). The members of the assembleia de freguesia are publicly elected every four years. The presidents of the parish boards are also members of the municipal assembly.[2]

Before the 2013 local government reforms, the 308 municipalities were subdivided into 4,259 civil parishes.[13] As part of the national government's attempt to control spending, in light of the sovereign debt crisis, in 2012 the government of Pedro Passos Coelho introduced a plan to reform the administrative divisions, in order to create efficiencies and save money. The plan envisioned the reform of the management, territorial geography and political form of how Portugal functioned at the local level, including specifically at the freguesia and município levels.[13] In addition to the reduction of the number of representatives in the local boards, the plan also established criteria for the reduction, amalgamation or extinction of various civil parishes.[13] The reform was implemented according to law 11-A/2013 of January 2013, which defined the reorganization of the civil parishes,[14]

Since the 2013 reform, there are 3,091 parishes in Portugal. The largest in area is Alcácer do Sal (Santa Maria do Castelo e Santiago) e Santa Susana with 888.35 km², the smallest is Borba (São Bartolomeu) with an area of 0.20 km².[11]

1936 provinces of Continental Portugal

Dinis's successor, Afonso IV (1325–1357), instituted a system of six official comarcas, that reflected a concrete definition of these regions: Antre Douro e Minho, Antre Douro e Mondego, Beira, Estremadura, Antre Tejo e Odiana and Algarve.[3][10][15] Between the reign of Afonso IV and the 20th century there were numerous alterations to the limits of the nation, a consequence of development and population growth. Further modifications to the limits of these provinces occurred in the Plano de Ordenamento da Mata Nacional da Machada (1864), the first scientific delimiting of forest resources, and the Projecto Geral da Arborização dos Areais Móveis de Portugal (1897), which modified land usage along the coast.[16]

But, until 1832, the provinces did not serve an administrative function, although they did mark the differences in habits, linguistic peculiarities and socio-cultural characteristics. The province remained a military designation, chiefed by the General das Armas (Military Governor), expressly forbidden from influencing municipal affairs. During the Liberal regime, some of the liberal politicians conceived an administrative system where provinces were the top level tier of government, maintaining their former names, but with different frontiers.[4] The debate over the importance of provinces only arose from fears that there would be an excessive concentration of power in the hands of governmental officers (prefeitos). The adoption of the 17 districts (1835) instead of eight provinces was an attempt to dissolve such power.

In 1936, the provinces were reestablished as administrative divisions in Portugal. However, instead the six traditional provinces, 11 new ones were established: Minho, Douro Litoral, Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Beira Alta, Beira Baixa, Beira Litoral, Estremadura, Ribatejo, Alto Alentejo, Baixo Alentejo and Algarve. These were based in the natural regions identified by the geographer Amorim Girão in several studies he published between 1922 and 1930. The Estado Novo regime used the provinces to characterize traditional and rural Portugal. Each province intended to be a regional community, to which were given decentralized powers.[17] Yet, the Districts continued to define administrative and political control, much like the organization of public security for the State, limiting the powers of local government.[17] This organizational structure for the territory resulted in a loss of the sense of regional identity, which was only kept alive by oral traditions, based on regional references of origin.[17]

There was a substantial difference between the European provinces and regions and the overseas colonies (the so-called overseas provinces).

Following the Carnation Revolution, the regions and provinces were abolished and the districts became the second level administrative regions.

The term overseas province started to be used to designate each of the Portuguese overseas territories, instead of the previous overseas dominion, during the administrative reforms of the beginning of the 19th century, following the idea that these territories were as part of Portugal as the Portuguese European provinces. In the beginning of the 20th century, most of these territories started to be referred as colonies, although the term overseas provinces continued also to be used. Only after 1951, the term colony was completely dropped and the term overseas province was exalted by the government of António de Oliveira Salazar to shift the attention of anti-colonial protests in the United Nations.[18] But the history of extra-local territories (colonies or provinces) within Portuguese administration dates back to the first settlements along the African coast, South-east Asia and Brazil, and were instituted as part of the 1832 reforms. The initiatives envisioned a comprehensive series of provinces that would have included European Portugal, archipelagos and extra-local dependencies in Southeast Asia, Africa and India. These colonies included:[19]

• Portuguese West Africa: an overseas province between 1951 and 1975, when it became the independent nation of Angola;
• Cape Verde: an overseas province between 1951 and 1974, autonomous republic between 1974 and 1975, when it became an independent nation;
• Portuguese Guinea: an overseas province between 1951–1974, until unilaterally declaring independence as Guinea-Bissau in 1973 (later recognised by Portugal in 1974);
• Macau: overseas province between 1844 and 1883; included many of the overseas provinces of South-east Asia with Portuguese Timor in the administration of Goa, between 1883 and 1951); an overseas province between 1951 and 1975; special territory between 1975 and 1999, before being returned to China as a special administrative region in 1999;
• Portuguese East Africa: overseas province between 1951 and 1974); local administration between 1974 and 1975, before it became the independent nation of Mozambique;
• Portuguese India: an overseas province between 1946 and 1962, it was annexed by India in 1962 (and later recognised by Portugal in 1974);
• São Tomé and Príncipe: an overseas province between 1951 and 1971); local administration between 1971 and 1975, before it became an independent nation in 1975;
• Portuguese Timor: an overseas territory between 1951 and 1961, until unilaterally declaring independence as East Timor in 1975, it was annexed by Indonesia in 1976, recognised by UN as non-self-governing-territory under Portuguese administration between 1961–1999. After 1999 it was a United Nations protectorate until formal independence in 2002.

Initially the population of these overseas territories were made to exploit resources (minerals, spices, wood or slaves), but later there was a sense of evangelisation or lusotropolicalism, that facilitated the colonization of these lands.[20] The first significant colony was Brazil whose history included a period as kingdom within the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves (1815–1822), before a political schism would result in its independence in 1822.