Freguesia (Portuguese pronunciation: [fɾɛɡɨˈziɐ]) is the Portuguese term for civil parish, a secondary local administrative unit in Portugal and in the former Portuguese Empire, and a former secondary local administrative unit in Macau. A "freguesia" is a subdivision of a "concelho" or "município", the Portuguese synonym terms for municipality. Most often, a civil parish takes the name of its seat, which is usually the most important (or the single) human agglomeration within its area; in cases where the seat is itself divided into more than one civil parish, each one takes the name of a landmark within its area or of the patron saint from the usually coterminous Catholic parish ("paróquia" in Portuguese).
Each civil parish is administered by a "Junta de Freguesia" ([ˈʒũtɐ dɨ fɾɛɡɨˈziɐ]), drawn from a publicly elected four-year-term "Assembleia de Freguesia".
Municipalities in Portugal are usually divided into multiple "freguesias", but six municipalities are not: Alpiarça, Barrancos, 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. Barcelos is the municipality with the most civil parishes: 89.
According to the Portuguese Statistics Bureau, there were 4,261 freguesias in Portugal as of 2006[update].
See also
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