Subdivisions of Portugal


The Subdivisions of Portugal is based on a complicated administrative structure. The second-level administrative division, after the 5 regions and 2 autonomous regions, is 308 municipalities which are further subdivided into 3091 civil parishes.

Administrative divisions of Portugal

Subdivisions of Portugal

SubdivisionTotalMainlandDescription
Regions55Territorial divisions of the continental unitary state
Autonomous Regions20Sub-territorial divisions comprising Azores and Madeira
Subregions2523Autonomous and sub-regional co-ordination commissions
Municipalities308278Municipal authorities
Civil Parishes30912882Local area authorities

Urban hierarchy

In Portugal, urban centers have no legal authority and are social constructs based on a series of institutional functions. In fact, administrative power lies within the extraterritorial municipalities and parishes. These have authority in the constitution and may include various towns within each territory and may have their own constituent assemblies and executives. The town or city, generally, does not correspond to the boundaries of various municipalities, with the exception of the entirely urban municipalities. The municipality with the most cities is Paredes Municipality which contains four cities.
Sub-divisionTotalMainlandDescription
Metropolitan areas22Agglomerations of metropolitan or urban regions
Intermunicipal communities2121Association of municipal authorities for coordination
Cities151141Population centres
Towns533???Population centres

Former subdivisions of Portugal

Sub-divisionTotalMainlandDescription
Province 661325 territorial administration instituted by Afonso IV
Province 1181823 reorganization attributed to Mouzinho da Silveira
Province 11111936 reorganization based on nationalist geographer Amorim Girão
Districts18181835 reorganization based on prefectures: phased-out in 20th century

Ancillary divisions

Statistical

Sub-divisionTotalMainlandDescription
NUTS 1: National31Continental Portugal, the Azores and Madeira
NUTS 2: Regions75Regional Coordination Commissions, and Autonomous Regions
NUTS 3: Subregion2523Metropolitan areas, intermunicipal communities and autonomous regions
LAU 1: Municipal308278Municipalities
LAU 2: Local30922882Civil Parishes

Communication

Ambiguity

Due to changes throughout history, the Portuguese unitary state has seen a continuous process of centralisation and de-centralisation, resulting in changes to the toponomy of various territorial divisions. Consequently, the many names have been appropriated at different levels to represent alterations to the geographic map of the country. This is particularly the case with the transitive period between the medieval provinces and 19th century Liberal reforms. Further, the influence of the Nationalist movement during the 20th century, resulted in the re-appearance of toponymic names long since abandoned.
The modern unitary state is influenced considerable by names passed between generations, and have been applied and re-applied, resulting in a historical ambiguity in the historical record, where one name may be used for two different areas. As is the case with the following examples:
Even between administrative level there several instances where the same name is used to represent a territorial division at the local, municipal or regional level.