The councils and assemblies of the municipalities of Macau were abolished on 1 January 2002, and their functions transferred to the Instituto para os Assuntos Cívicos e Municipais, slightly more than 2 years after Macau became a special administrative region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China. They had been put in place under the administration of Portugal.
The current administrative body is the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (Portuguese: Instituto para os Assuntos Cívicos e Municipais, Traditional Chinese: 民政總署) under the Secretariat for Administration and Justice (Secretaria da Administração e Justiça) of the SAR government.