Metropolitan areas in Portugal


The metropolitan area is a type of administrative division in Portugal. Since the 2013 local government reform, there are two metropolitan areas: Lisbon and Porto. The metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto were created in 1991. A law passed in 2003 supported the creation of more metropolitan areas, under the conditions that they consisted of at least nine municipalities and had at least 350,000 inhabitants. Several metropolitan areas were created under this law, but a law passed in 2008 abolished these, converting them into intermunicipal communities, whose territories are based on the NUTS III statistical regions.
The branches of administration of the metropolitan area are the metropolitan council, the metropolitan executive committee and the strategic board for metropolitan development. The metropolitan council is composed of the presidents of the municipal chambers of the municipalities.

List

The legal status of metropolitan area is held only by two:
The OECD and Eurostat have identified the following metropolitan areas based on commuting patterns.
RankCity nameFUA population Region
1Lisbon2,925,000Lisbon
2Porto1,265,000Norte
3Coimbra271,000Centro
4Braga250,000Norte
5Funchal213,000Madeira
6Guimarães179,000Norte
7Aveiro139,000Centro
8Faro122,000Algarve
9Ponta Delgada119,000Azores
10Viseu111,000Centro