Portuguese administrative units, every vintage

One row per freguesia per administrative vintage. "Administrative vintage" means which units exist, which changes by Portuguese law and is unrelated to the NUTS revision (see pt_nuts_codes) or the health geography (see pt_health_codes).

Usage

pt_registry

Format

A data.frame with 14852 rows and columns:

admin_vintage: "2001", "2011", "2013" or "2025".
dtmnfr: 6-digit freguesia code, unique within the vintage.
freguesia: Official designation. For 2013, the last one the freguesia had on that map.
designacao_simplificada: Without the "União das freguesias de" prefix. Official for 2025; derived by the same rule for 2013, because DGT's list for that map leaves 32 uniões unsimplified. Equal to freguesia for 2001 and 2011, which predate uniões.
dtmn: 4-digit município code (the first four of dtmnfr).
municipio: Município name.
dt, distrito_ilha: District or island.

Source

Carta Administrativa Oficial de Portugal (DGT): CAOP 2025, and CAOP 2024 for the 2013 names, which INE's code list for that map matches name for name; Lei 11-A/2013 and Lei 25-A/2025; INE's freguesia code lists for the 2001 and 2011 censuses.

Details

dtmn is denormalised onto each row, so a vintage's set of municípios is the distinct dtmn values within it.

Vintages

"2025": 3259 freguesias. Lei 25-A/2025, in force from the 2025 autárquicas, which restored units aggregated in 2013.
"2013": 3092 freguesias. Lei 11-A/2013. This is the set INE still publishes, including on indicators labelled "NUTS - 2024" — the label refers to the NUTS revision, not to the freguesia set. Each freguesia has the last name it had on that map, as in CAOP 2024 and INE's tables. 25 were renamed by law while the map was in force ("Buarcos" became "Buarcos e São Julião" in 2015), and pt_match() recognizes the earlier names too.
"2011": 4260 freguesias, the map the 2011 census used, in force from 2004 until the 2013 reform.
"2001": 4241 freguesias, the map the 2001 census used. Between the two censuses 22 freguesias were created and 3 dissolved.

The pre-2013 maps are named after the census that recorded them, because neither was made by a single law; the later ones after their reform.

Codes are vintage-local

A DTMNFR identifies a unit within its own vintage only. None of the 302 freguesias restored in 2025 reused its pre-2013 code, so comparing codes across vintages, or joining data of one vintage onto codes of another, silently mismatches. Convert with pt_crosswalk(); carry values across with pt_recode().

Examples

table(pt_registry$admin_vintage)
#> 
#> 2001 2011 2013 2025 
#> 4241 4260 3092 3259 

# the set INE publishes today
head(pt_registry[pt_registry$admin_vintage == "2013", ])
#>      admin_vintage dtmnfr                                       freguesia
#> 8502          2013 010103                                  Aguada de Cima
#> 8503          2013 010109                                     Fermentelos
#> 8504          2013 010112                              Macinhata do Vouga
#> 8505          2013 010119                                Valongo do Vouga
#> 8506          2013 010121       União das freguesias de Águeda e Borralha
#> 8507          2013 010122 União das freguesias de Barrô e Aguada de Baixo
#>      designacao_simplificada dtmn municipio dt distrito_ilha
#> 8502          Aguada de Cima 0101    Águeda 01        Aveiro
#> 8503             Fermentelos 0101    Águeda 01        Aveiro
#> 8504      Macinhata do Vouga 0101    Águeda 01        Aveiro
#> 8505        Valongo do Vouga 0101    Águeda 01        Aveiro
#> 8506       Águeda e Borralha 0101    Águeda 01        Aveiro
#> 8507 Barrô e Aguada de Baixo 0101    Águeda 01        Aveiro