The metropolitan area (Portuguese: área metropolitana) is a type of administrative division in Portugal. Since the 2013 local government reform, there are two metropolitan areas: Lisbon and Porto.[1] The metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto were created in 1991.[2] A law passed in 2003 supported the creation of more metropolitan areas, under the conditions that they consisted of at least nine municipalities (concelhos) and had at least 350,000 inhabitants.[3] Several metropolitan areas were created under this law (Algarve, Aveiro, Coimbra, Minho and Viseu),[2] but a law passed in 2008 abolished these, converting them into intermunicipal communities, whose territories are (roughly) based on the NUTS III statistical regions.[4] [2]
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.[1]
The legal status of metropolitan area is held only by two:[1]
The OECD and Eurostat have identified the following metropolitan areas ("Functional Urban Areas") based on commuting patterns.
| Rank | City name | Population[5] | Region | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,008,000 | Lisbon | ||
| 2 | 1,758,531 | Norte | ||
| 3 | 264,656 | Centro | ||
| 4 | 247,719 | Norte | ||
| 5 | 215,396 | Madeira | ||
| 6 | 176,206 | Norte | ||
| 7 | 141,577 | Centro | ||
| 8 | 126,518 | Azores | ||
| 9 | 115,836 | Algarve | ||
| 10 | 108,829 | Norte |