Municipalities of Puerto Rico

The Municipalities of Puerto Rico number 78 and they make up the smallest electoral division of the Commonwealth. Each municipality is divided into barrios, though the latter are not vested with political authority.

Administrative divisions

There are no first-order administrative divisions as defined by the United States Government, but Puerto Rico has 78 municipalities or "municipios" at the secondary order. For U.S. Census purposes, the municipalities are equivalent to a county.^[1] They are conveniently grouped into eight electoral districts, which do not possess administrative functions. In 1991, the Autonomous Municipalities of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Act was passed as a strategy for the decentralizing control and for improving government services to the people.

Municipal politics

The municipalities elect a Mayor and a legislative assembly in the general elections every four years.

List of municipalities

The following is an alphabetical list of the municipalities in Puerto Rico

The municipal amalgamation proposal

In October 2009, a Puerto Rican legislator proposed a bill that would reduce to 20 the 78 municipalities currently making up the Island. The bill called for a referendum to take place on June 13, 2010, and which would let the people decide on the matter.^[5] The bill never made into law.

It was not the first time that an attempt to consolidate municipalities had failed. In 1902 the Puerto Rico legislature, under pressure from the US.-appointed governor of the Island, passed a law consolidating the then-76 municipalities of Puerto Rico into 46.^[6] The law was repealed three years later.^[7][8]

The proposed twenty new municipalities (in bold) and the existing municipalities that would have made them up:

References

See also

• Barrios of Puerto Rico

External links

• CIA World Factbook - Puerto Rico
• Municipalities on the west coast of Puerto Rico