(), usually translated as "parish" or "civil parish", is the third-level administrative subdivision of Portugal, as defined by the 1976 Constitution. It is also the designation for local government jurisdictions in the former Portuguese overseas territories of Cape Verde and Macau. In the past, it was also an administrative division of the other Portuguese overseas territories. The civil parishes and communities in England and Wales and in the Spanish autonomous communities of Galicia and Asturias is similar to a in Portugal. The average land area of a Portuguese parish is about and an average population of about 3,400 people. The largest parish by area is Alcácer do Sal (Santa Maria do Castelo e Santiago) e Santa Susana, with a land area of , and the smallest parish by area is São Bartolomeu (Borba), with a land area of . The most populous parish is Algueirão - Mem Martins, with a population of 68,649 people and the least populous is Mosteiro, with a population of just nineteen people.
A is a subdivision of a município (municipality), which is a cluster of , like a US county. Most often, a parish takes the name of its seat, which is usually the most important (or the single) human agglomeration within its area, which can be a neighbourhood or city district, a group of hamlets, a village, a town or an entire city. In cases where the seat is itself divided into more than one parish, each one takes the name of a landmark within its area or of the patron saint from the usually coterminous Catholic parish ( in Portuguese). Be it a city district or village, the civil parish is often based on an ecclesiastical parish.
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/council") 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. , the traditional Portuguese word for parish, had its beginning in the filius ecclesiae (child of the church) and filius gregis (child of the shepherds's flock), the collectivity of the religious faithful, with similar aspirations and interests. In 2011, after more than two weeks of bailout negotiations in light of the sovereign debt crisis with the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission, the Portuguese government was obliged to reduce the number of municipal and parish local governments after July 2012. The government of Pedro Passos Coelho introduced a plan to reform the administrative divisions, claiming it would 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 and concelho levels. This way, the number of parishes was reduced from 4,259 to 3,091. By 2025, a change to the 2013 reform allowed the separation of merged parishes, of which 167 separations were approved, increasing the total number of parishes to 3,259.
Municipalities in Portugal are usually divided into multiple freguesias, but seven municipalities are not: Alpiarça, Barrancos, Castanheira de Pera, Porto Santo, São Brás de Alportel and São João da Madeira all consist of a single civil parish, and Corvo is a special case of a municipality without civil parishes, where all usual parish duties and functions are performed by the municipality directly. Barcelos is the municipality with the most civil parishes (61, since 2013).
Portugal has no unincorporated areas; all the national territory (apart from the above-mentioned example of Corvo) belongs to a civil parish, including uninhabited islands: Selvagens Islands to Sé, and Berlengas to Peniche, Desertas Islands to Santa Cruz, and Formigas Islets to Vila do Porto, in the municipalities with the same name (except for Sé, which belongs to Funchal).
Cape Verde
Of Cape Verde's 22 municipalities, which form the highest level of sub-national government in the small African state, some but not all are subdivided into parishes. There are 32 parishes in the country.
Macau
Macau is an autonomous special administrative region in Southern China that was historically a part of the Portuguese Empire until its handover to China in 1999. During the period of Portuguese rule it was divided into two municipalities which were subdivided into a total of seven parishes. In 2001 the municipalities were dissolved and their administrative functions transferred to the Municipal Affairs Bureau. The parishes were legally retained but no longer serve an administrative function.
See also
- List of parishes of Portugal (freguesias)
- Bairro
- Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau – replaced the former municipal councils during Portuguese rule of Macau, but retain the freguesias model
- Civil parish, a similar administrative division found in England