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thumb|300px|right|The border between the municipalities of [[Lisbon and Oeiras; shared also by the civil parishes of Santa Maria de Belém (Lisbon) and Algés (Oeiras)]]
Portugal is a unitary state with delegated authority to three levels of local government that cover the entire country:
- 2 autonomous regions (Azores and Madeira), and in Continental Portugal: 2 metropolitan areas, and 21 intermunicipal communities
- 308 municipalities
- 3259 civil parishes () (except Corvo Island which only has a single municipality)
The powers of the 18 Districts were removed when the government decided not to reappoint their Civil Governors in 2011.
The legal status of a city or town is granted only for ceremonial purposes, typically with smaller boundaries than municipalities. Some municipalities have several cities.
Starting in 2003, Eurostat has defined regions and subregions in the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) standard. These are coincide with some local government borders, but are otherwise only used for statistical purposes.
Districts
There are 18 districts in continental Portugal:
{| style="margin:auto;"
|-
|
- Lisbon
- Leiria
- Santarém
- Setúbal
- Beja
- Faro
- Évora
- Portalegre
- Castelo Branco
- Guarda
- Coimbra
- Aveiro
- Viseu
- Bragança
- Vila Real
- Porto
- Braga
- Viana do Castelo
|
right|200px|Districts of Portugal
|}
The distribution of Portuguese districts is nominally homogeneous, although there are outliers (Beja for example is 4.6 times larger than the smallest district, Viana do Castelo). But these divisions bely the inadequacies and disparities that exist within the country: the distribution of population and gross domestic product between territorial units is markedly different.
!Pop.<br/>(2021)
!Pop.<br/>(2024)
!Area<br/>(km<sup>2</sup>)
!Density<br/>(/km<sup>2</sup>)
|-
|Azores (autonomous region)
|19
|156
|236,413
|241,718
|2,322
|104
|-
|Aveiro
|19
|174
|700,787
|734,762
|2,798
|263
|-
|Beja
|14
|84
|144,401
|149,546
|10,229
|15
|-
|Braga
|14
|371
|846,293
|867,537
|2,706
|321
|-
|Bragança
|12
|226
|122,804
|122,360
|6,608
|19
|-
|Castelo Branco
|11
|128
|177,962
|180,889
|6,675
|27
|-
|Coimbra
|17
|161
|408,551
|423,432
|3,947
|107
|-
|Évora
|14
|75
|152,444
|153,430
|7,393
|21
|-
|Faro
|16
|76
|467,343
|492,747
|4,960
|99
|-
|Guarda
|14
|245
|142,974
|142,210
|5,518
|26
|-
|Leiria
|16
|116
|458,605
|486,583
|3,505
|139
|-
|Lisbon
|16
|141
|2,275,385
|2,390,715
|2,761
|866
|-
|Madeira (autonomous region)
|11
|54
|250,744
|259,440
|801
|324
|-
|Portalegre
|15
|72
|104,923
|103,566
|6,065
|17
|-
|Porto
|18
|275
|1,785,405
|1,860,255
|2,408
|773
|-
|Santarém
|21
|150
|424,973
|446,393
|6,747
|66
|-
|Setúbal
|13
|60
|874,806
|916,859
|5,064
|181
|-
|Viana do Castelo
|10
|213
|231,266
|234,645
|2,255
|104
|-
|Vila Real
|14
|200
|185,695
|184,707
|4,328
|43
|-
|Viseu
|24
|282
|351,292
|357,841
|5,007
|71
|- style="background-color:#E9E9E9"
| Total Portugal
| 308
| 3,259
| 10,343,066
| 10,749,635
| 92,097
| 117
|}
Autonomous regions
235px|right|thumbnail|Ponta Delgada, one of the three regional capitals of the Autonomous Region of the Azores
235px|thumbnail|right|Funchal, the regional capital of the Autonomous Region of Madeira
Since 1976, Portugal conceded political autonomy to its North Atlantic archipelagos (Madeira and Azores) 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 (), that constitutes a Regional Cabinet, comprising a President () and several Regional Secretaries ().
The Azores () is an archipelago of nine islands and several islets that were discovered and settled by the Portuguese in the late 15th century. The Azores lies a third of the distance between Europe and North America, along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The government and administration of the archipelago is distributed between the three capitals of the former districts of the Azores: the regional parliament is located in the city of Horta (on Faial Island); Ponta Delgada (on São Miguel Island) is the most populous city and home to the Regional Presidency and administration; while Angra do Heroísmo (on Terceira Island), the historical and cultural capital, is the home of the Azorean judiciary and seat of the Diocese of the Azores.
Madeira is an archipelago that includes two principal islands, Madeira and Porto Santo, plus two uninhabited natural group of islands, the Desertas and Savage Islands (). The archipelago is located closer to Africa than Europe, is highly commercial and urbanized; its regional capital (Funchal) is developmentally comparable to urban centers in the Canary or Balearic Islands.
Subdivisions
The division of the Portuguese territory is established in title eight (Título VIII) of the Portuguese constitution: granting local authority to territorial collectivities with representative organs to affect the interests of the local populations. A law passed in 2003 supported the creation of more metropolitan areas, urban communities and other associations of municipalities, but a law passed in 2008 abolished these, converting them into intermunicipal communities.
- metropolitan areas (áreas metropolitanas) and
- intermunicipal communities (comunidades intermunicipais).
Metropolitan areas
thumb|235px|The Greater Metropolitan Area of Lisbon extending across the Tagus River and Estuary
thumb|235px|The sister municipalities of [[Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia, extending across the Douro River]]
thumb|235px|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: and abolished in 2008. Preceding the nation's independence, the oldest of the larger municipalities still in existence Coimbra and Santarém were founded in 1085 and 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 () 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 () 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.
Nearly all municipalities are subdivided into civil parishes. Barcelos is the municipality with the largest number of civil parishes (61).
Civil parishes
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". 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. A 2025 change to the 2013 reform, allowed the separation of merged parishes, of which 167 separations were approved.
Since the 2025, there are 3,259 parishes in Portugal.
The first division of the Portuguese territory was based exclusively on the Roman Iberian provinces of Hispania Tarraconensis, Lusitania and Hispania Baetica, established by Emperor Augustus between 27 and 13 B.C. There was also a tendency to demarcate lands associated with settlements or seigneurial properties; there was a constant history of forals (the royal charters) being allocated for unorganized territories, as a means to primarily establish fealty rights and encourage medieval settlement. Similarly the parish, instituted by the religious orders that dominated the country, controlled local ecclesiastical power at the local level.
During the reign of King Dinis (1279–1325), the monarch instituted a series of inquiries throughout the kingdom which resulted, a few years later, in the configuration of the territory into provinces and municipalities.
Provinces
thumb|150px|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. 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. 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:
- 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 and 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 and 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. 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.
NUTS
thumb|220px|right|Territorial map corresponding to the NUTS I and NUTS II designations
The Eurostat-based NUTS system subdivides the nation into three levels: NUTS I, NUTS II and NUTS III. In some European partners, as is the case with Portugal, a complementary hierarchy, respectively LAU I and LAU II (posteriorly referred to as NUTS IV and NUTS V) is employed. The LAU, or Local Administrative Units, in the Portuguese context pertains to the 308 municipalities (LAU I) and 3259 civil parishes (LAU II) respectively. In the broadest sense, the NUTS hierarchy, while they may follow some of the borders (municipal or parish) diverge in their delineation.
NUTS Codes
The regions, subregions and their NUTS codes are:
{| class="wikitable"
! width="60px" |Code
! width="200px" |NUTS 1
! width="60px" |Code
! width="200px" |NUTS 2
! width="60px" |Code
! width="250px" |NUTS 3
|-
| rowspan="24" align="center" |PT1
| rowspan="24" align="center" |Portugal Continental
| rowspan="8" align=center|PT11
| rowspan="8" align=center|Norte
|align=center|PT111
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Alto Minho
|-
|align=center|PT112
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Cávado
|-
|align=center|PT119
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Ave
|-
|align=center|PT11A
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Área Metropolitana do Porto
|-
|align=center|PT11B
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Alto Tâmega
|-
|align=center|PT11C
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Tâmega e Sousa
|-
|align=center|PT11D
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Douro
|-
|align=center|PT11E
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Terras de Trás-os-Montes
|-
|PT15
|Algarve
|align=center|PT150
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Algarve
|-
| rowspan="6" |PT19
| rowspan="6" |Centro <br>
| align="center" |PT191
| style="padding-left: 7px" |Região de Aveiro
|-
|align=center|PT192
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Região de Coimbra
|-
|align=center|PT193
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Região de Leiria
|-
|align=center|PT194
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Viseu Dão-Lafões
|-
|align=center|PT195
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Beira Baixa
|-
|align=center|PT196
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Beiras e Serra da Estrela
|-
|PT1A
| style="padding-left: 7px" |Grande Lisboa
| align="center" |PT1A0
| style="padding-left: 7px" |Grande Lisboa
|-
|PT1B
|Península de Setúbal
| align="center" |PT1B0
| style="padding-left: 7px" |Península de Setúbal
|-
| rowspan="4" |PT1C
| rowspan="4" |Alentejo
| align="center" |PT1C1
| style="padding-left: 7px" |Alentejo Litoral
|-
|align=center|PT1C2
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Baixo Alentejo
|-
|align=center|PT1C3
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Alto Alentejo
|-
|align=center|PT1C4
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Alentejo Central
|-
| rowspan="3" |PT1D
| rowspan="3" |Oeste e Vale do Tejo
| align="center"|PT1D1
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Oeste
|-
| align="center"|PT1D2
| style="padding-left: 7px" |Médio Tejo
|-
| align="center"|PT1D3
| style="padding-left: 7px" |Lezíria do Tejo
|-
| align=center|PT2
| align=center|Região Autónoma dos Açores
| align=center|PT20
| align=center|Região Autónoma dos Açores
|align=center|PT200
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Região Autónoma dos Açores
|-
| align=center|PT3
| align=center|Região Autónoma da Madeira
| align=center|PT30
| align=center|Região Autónoma da Madeira
|align=center|PT300
|style="padding-left: 7px"|Região Autónoma da Madeira
|}
See also
- Subdivisions of Portugal
:* List of regions and sub-regions of Portugal
:** List of municipalities of Portugal (, LAU I)
:*** List of parishes of Portugal (, LAU II)
- List of cities in Portugal
- List of towns in Portugal
- ISO 3166-2:PT
- Administrative geography of the United Kingdom
References
;Notes
;Sources
External links
- Lisbon Metropolitan Area
- Greater Porto
- Madeira's Regional Government
- Azores' Regional Government
- CityMayors feature
- Current and Former Colonies and Possessions of Portugal from WorldStatesmen.org