Municipalities of Puerto Rico

The municipalities of Puerto Rico are second-level administrative divisions defined with geographic boundaries and governmental authority in the archipelago and island of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the U.S. Amounting to 78 incorporated towns and cities equivalent to U.S. counties, two of which are outside the main island, namely the smaller islands of Vieques and Culebra, the municipalities are governed by a popularly elected strong mayor and unicameral legislature. They are subdivided into 902 barrios, third-level divisions controlled by the municipal government. As a jurisdiction under U.S. sovereignty, Puerto Rico does not have first-level administrative units akin to states or provinces.
The municipalities of Puerto Rico operate under the Municipal Code of Puerto Rico, which superseded the Autonomous Municipalities Act of Puerto Rico, as established by the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico, the governmental body responsible for their organization under Section 1, Article VI of the Constitution of Puerto Rico. Electorally, the municipalities are grouped into eight senatorial districts and forty representative districts, representing roughly equal populations in the Legislative Assembly.

Map

The archipelago and island of Puerto Rico is administratively divided into the following 78 municipalities:

Municipalities

The archipelago and island of Puerto Rico is administratively divided into the following 78 municipalities :

Administration

Since 2020, the municipalities are organized under the Municipal Code of Puerto Rico. They were previously governed under by the Law of Autonomous Municipalities of Puerto Rico, which established that every municipality must have an elected strong mayor with a municipal legislature as the form of government. Each legislature must be unicameral, with the number of members related to adequate representation of the total population of the municipality. In contrast to other jurisdictions, both the mayors and the municipal legislators are elected on the same date and for the same term of four years in office.
From a political and ekistic perspective, several differences and similarities exist between municipalities of differing population sizes. For instance, municipalities with 50,000 inhabitants or more are considered incorporated cities, while those with fewer than 50,000 are considered incorporated towns. Size affects the autonomy exercised by the jurisdiction: cities provide and manage their own services, while towns typically depend on nearby cities for certain services. Demographically, municipalities in Puerto Rico are equivalent to counties in the United States, and Puerto Rican municipalities are registered as county subdivisions in the United States census. Statistically, the municipality with the largest number of inhabitants is San Juan, with 342,259, while Culebra is the smallest, with around 1,792. Arecibo is the largest in terms of geography, with around 125 mi², and Cataño the smallest, with around 4.8 mi².
Except for San Juan, Ponce, Florida, and Vieques, all municipalities have a barrio equivalent to a downtown area in the U.S. called pueblo, officially known as barrio-pueblo, which typically is the site of the historic Spanish colonial settlement, administrative center, and urban core of the municipality. However, municipalities with large populations, like Ponce, may have an urban core that consist of several barrios.
In Recent Civic Architecture in Porto Rico by Adrian C. Finlayson, architect for the Insular Department of the Interior Architecture, writing for the publication Architectural Record in 1920, the Puerto Rican municipality is accurately described as:

Finances

In 2012, 36 of the 78 municipalities were experiencing a budget deficit. In total, the combined debt carried by the municipalities stands at about US$590 million.

Municipality

Mayor's party

Population

Surplus or deficit

Surplus or deficit per capita

Public debt

Public debt per capita

Adjuntas

PNP

19,483

Racial composition

The following is an alphabetical list of the municipalities and their population together with a breakdown of their racial composition.

Municipality	White	Black	Amerindian	Asian	Two or more races or some other race	Hispanic
Adjuntas	22.2	3.4	4.2	0.1	65.1	99.7
Aguada	22.7	4.1	3.0	0.2	63.5	99.3
Aguadilla	21.0	4.1	3.5	0.2	62.9	98.4
Aguas Buenas	14.5	7.2	3.3	0.3	61.4	99.5
Aibonito	19.4	5.4	3.3	0.1	64.8	99.1
Añasco	18.4	5.7	3.4	0.2	63.9	99.0
Arecibo	19.0	4.6	2.2	0.2	66.6	99.3
Arroyo	11.5	12.5	1.9	0.4	60.4	99.1
Barceloneta	15.8	4.1	2.4	0.2	67.4	99.5
Barranquitas	20.8	5.2	2.1	0.1	66.2	99.7
Bayamón	17.9	6.2	3.0	0.3	62.5	99.0
Cabo Rojo	20.3	3.8	2.8	0.2	65.7	98.8
Caguas	15.9	6.3	3.1	0.3	63.9	99.2
Camuy	22.7	3.8	3.0	0.1	64.2	99.1
Canóvanas	13.4	15.1	2.6	0.3	50.3	99.3
Carolina	14.2	11.6	2.6	0.4	55.5	98.5
Cataño	13.0	8.2	2.9	0.3	62.0	99.0
Cayey	17.4	6.3	2.5	0.2	65.3	99.4
Ceiba	16.0	9.8	2.6	0.4	57.2	98.2
Ciales	20.8	2.9	2.1	0.3	69.6	99.5
Cidra	19.5	6.8	2.7	0.1	62.6	99.5
Coamo	20.0	7.4	2.8	0.2	61.6	99.4
Comerío	16.9	6.4	4.1	0.2	63.3	99.6
Corozal	19.8	3.7	2.5	0.2	67.7	99.5
Culebra	17.7	8.0	1.7	1.1	51.8	89.2
Dorado	17.6	7.5	3.1	0.6	58.1	96.6
Fajardo	14.5	9.3	2.5	0.4	61.3	98.2
Florida	13.8	2.1	1.4	0.3	74.9	99.5
Guánica	17.1	5.2	2.7	0.2	67.2	99.1
Guayama	19.0	9.6	2.6	0.2	56.6	99.3
Guayanilla	18.1	5.1	3.6	0.1	64.7	99.6
Guaynabo	17.2	4.8	2.6	0.4	66.2	97.9
Gurabo	15.2	7.1	3.3	0.2	61.8	99.2
Hatillo	21.2	3.5	2.5	0.2	66.1	99.2
Hormigueros	18.8	5.1	2.8	0.2	65.0	99.2
Humacao	13.5	8.8	2.5	0.3	62.4	98.0
Isabela	17.5	4.0	2.4	0.2	67.1	98.7
Jayuya	23.3	2.4	3.3	0.1	65.8	99.5
Juana Díaz	14.5	8.0	2.7	0.2	63.8	99.5
Juncos	13.0	9.3	2.9	0.2	61.0	99.4
Lajas	18.9	4.1	2.6	0.2	67.4	99.3
Lares	20.5	2.2	2.5	0.1	70.1	99.3
Las Marías	17.2	3.5	3.1	0.3	69.4	99.2
Las Piedras	15.6	8.3	2.9	0.2	60.3	99.4
Loíza	5.8	31.8	1.6	0.2	27.7	99.4
Luquillo	17.2	12.1	2.7	0.3	54.1	97.1
Manatí	17.1	4.3	2.2	0.2	67.8	99.3
Maricao	22.2	7.8	3.7	0.5	61.0	99.5
Maunabo	9.1	16.7	2.0	0.2	56.0	99.4
Mayagüez	19.7	4.6	3.0	0.3	63.2	98.7
Moca	17.0	3.1	2.6	0.1	70.8	99.6
Morovis	19.1	3.4	2.5	0.2	69.4	99.6
Naguabo	13.3	9.2	2.4	0.2	63.2	99.2
Naranjito	20.7	6.4	3.3	0.2	61.0	99.6
Orocovis	16.3	5.3	6.4	0.2	62.6	99.6
Patillas	15.9	12.3	2.6	0.2	57.2	99.3
Peñuelas	23.1	6.7	3.8	0.1	57.2	99.5
Ponce	19.0	4.9	3.0	0.3	64.4	99.1
Quebradillas	25.4	3.4	3.2	0.2	62.6	99.2
Rincón	21.4	5.9	4.9	0.2	58.5	94.9
Río Grande	14.7	14.7	2.6	0.3	50.4	98.8
Sabana Grande	19.9	4.0	2.4	0.2	66.6	99.4
Salinas	16.3	9.8	3.8	0.2	57.6	99.2
San Germán	18.5	4.6	3.8	0.3	64.1	99.2
San Juan	14.4	8.2	2.7	0.5	60.2	97.8
San Lorenzo	14.0	6.6	2.7	0.2	66.0	99.5
San Sebastián	19.2	2.1	2.9	0.1	70.4	99.4
Santa Isabel	15.7	8.2	2.6	0.2	60.8	99.4
Toa Alta	16.2	5.8	2.7	0.2	65.8	99.4
Toa Baja	16.3	10.1	2.2	0.3	59.1	99.0
Trujillo Alto	14.2	8.0	2.3	0.2	62.6	99.1
Utuado	21.6	2.4	4.0	0.2	66.3	99.2
Vega Alta	12.4	7.3	2.4	0.3	66.6	98.8
Vega Baja	18.5	6.4	3.5	0.2	61.2	99.3
Vieques	18.8	15.2	2.6	0.4	52.2	92.0
Villalba	15.5	6.2	2.9	0.2	65.4	99.6
Yabucoa	16.5	9.7	2.6	0.2	60.6	99.4
Yauco	21.4	4.7	3.2	0.2	63.5	99.4
Puerto Rico	17.1	7.0	2.8	0.3	62.3	98.9

Proposed amalgamation

Multiple times, politicians have discussed and proposed consolidating Puerto Rico's municipalities but so far no proposals has been adopted. In 1902 the Puerto Rico legislature, under pressure from the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, passed a law consolidating the then-76 municipalities of Puerto Rico into 46. The law was repealed three years later. In October 2009, a Puerto Rican legislator proposed a bill that would reduce the current 78 municipalities of Puerto Rico down to 20. The bill called for a referendum to take place on June 13, 2010, which would let the people decide on the matter. However, the bill never made into law. With the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis that emerged in the first half of 2010s, a new plan to consolidate municipalities was again circulated in the legislature in 2017 as a way to alleviate the government debt crisis. In March 2019, then Governor Ricardo Rosselló created an initiative that would preserve the existing municipalities but create regional consolidation by sharing service overhead in the form of counties but he resigned prior to anything coming of his proposal.