Municipalities of Puerto Rico - Administrative Divisions

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. 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.

Every municipality is composed of several barrios, except for Florida which has only one barrio. The municipality of Ponce has the largest number of barrios, 31.

Every municipality (except San Juan) also has an urban area made up of one or more barrios. When the urban area is made up of only one barrio, it is called "Barrio Pueblo". Some urban areas are made up of multiple barrios: Ponce's urban area, for example, is made up of 12 barrios. All of San Juan's barrios are urban barrios, and the municipality of San Juan is composed of urban barrios only - thus, the entire municipality of San Juan consists of one large urban zone only.

Every municipality's urban zone is named by the same name as the municipality. For example, the municipality of Caguas has an urban called Caguas - just like the municipality. Some municipality's urban zone are termed "pueblo" (town) while others are termed "ciudad" (city). The difference resides in the population of the municipality: if the municipality has an urban zone below 50,000 inhabitants, then its urban zone is called a pueblo. If a municipality has a population above 50,000 inhabitants in its urban zone, then its urban zone is called a ciudad.