The Municipal Map in Portugal

Abstract

The municipality is the basic territorial organization for almost all the Member States of the European Union and has approximately the same attributions in all these. Even so, the territorial structure of municipalities differs in each of the Member States, and it is possible to group them into two large groups: those that have implemented reforms with a consequent reduction in the number of these entities and those with a high number of municipalities. Although Spain is a neighbor of Portugal and Portugal gets some influences from France, in fact the territorial organization of municipalities corresponds to very different realities. Through this research you can see that Portugal did reform its municipalities while France and Spain failed to do so. However, they all recognize that there is a need to reform the territorial structure of municipalities.