Almería Almería (, , ) is a city and municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain, located in Andalusia. It is the capital of the province of Almería, province of the same name. It lies in southeastern Iberian Peninsula, Iberia on the Mediterranean S ...

is a

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

in the

autonomous community The autonomous communities () are the first-level administrative divisions of Spain, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy to the nationalities and regions that make up Sp ...

Andalusia Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomou ...

, Spain, which is divided into 103

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

. Spanish census, Almería is the 21st largest of the 50 provinces by population, with inhabitants, and the 27th largest by land area, spanning . Municipalities are the basic local political division in Spain and can only belong to one province. They enjoy a large degree of autonomy in their local administration, being in charge of tasks such as urban planning, water supply, lighting, roads, local police, and firefighting. The organisation of municipalities in Spain is outlined in a

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such a ...

law (; ) passed on 2 April 1985 and finalised by an 18 April 1986 royal decree. The Statute of Autonomy of Andalusia also contains provisions concerning the relations between the municipalities and the autonomous government of Andalusia. All citizens of Spain are required to register in the municipality in which they reside. Each municipality is a corporation with independent

legal person In law, a legal person is any person or legal entity that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, lawsuit, sue and be sued, ownership, own property, and so on. The reason for the term "''le ...

hood: its governing body is called the ''

ayuntamiento ''Ayuntamiento'' ()In other languages of Spain: * (). * (). * (). is the general term for the town council, or ''cabildo'', of a municipality or, sometimes, as is often the case in Spain and Latin America, for the municipality itself. is mai ...

'' (

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough cou ...

corporation A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...

), a term often also used to refer to the municipal offices (city and town halls). The ''ayuntamiento'' is composed of the

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

(), the

deputy mayor The deputy mayor (also known as vice mayor and assistant mayor) is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official that is present in many local governments. Duties and functions Many elected deputy mayors are members of the loca ...

s (''tenientes de alcalde'') and the plenary assembly (''pleno'') of

councillor A councillor, alternatively councilman, councilwoman, councilperson, or council member, is someone who sits on, votes in, or is a member of, a council. This is typically an elected representative of an electoral district in a municipal or re ...

s (''concejales''). Municipalities are categorised by population for the purpose of determining the number of councillors: three when the population is up to 100 inhabitants, five for 101250, seven for 2511,000, nine for 1,0012,000, eleven for 2,0015,000, thirteen for 5,00110,000, seventeen for 10,00120,000, twenty-one for 20,00150,000, and twenty-five for 50,001100,000. One councillor is added for every additional 100,000 inhabitants, with a further one added when the number of councillors based on this methodology would be even in order to prevent tied votes. The mayor and the deputy mayors are elected by the plenary assembly, which is itself elected by

universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...

. Elections in municipalities with more than 250 inhabitants are carried out following a

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

system with

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively vote for only political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some in ...

s, whilst those with a population lower than 250 use a

block plurality voting Plurality block voting is a type of block voting method for multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of seats to be filled. The candidates with the most votes are elected. The usual result when the candidates divi ...

system with

open list Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a Political party, party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists ...

s. The plenary assembly must meet periodically at the seat of the ''ayuntamiento'', with meetings occurring more or less frequently depending on the population of the municipality: monthly for those whose population is larger than 20,000, once every two months if it ranges between 5,001 and 20,000, and once every three months if it does not exceed 5,000. Many ''ayuntamientos'' also have a local governing board (), which is named by the mayor from amongst the councillors and is required for municipalities of more than 5,000 inhabitants. The board, whose role is to assist the mayor between meetings of the plenary assembly, may not include more than one third of the councillors. The largest municipality by population in the province as of the 2024 Spanish census is

, its capital, with 201,946 residents, while the smallest is

Benitagla Benitagla is a municipality of Almería province, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Demographics See also *List of municipalities in Almería Almería (province), Almería is a provinces of Spain, province in the Autonomous ...

, with 59 residents. The largest municipality by area is

Níjar Níjar () is a Spanish municipality in the province of Almería, Andalusia. It lies in the eastern part of Almería, in the Sierra de Alhamilla and the south-eastern Mediterranean coast, in the Campo de Níjar, near the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natu ...

, which spans , while

Alicún Alicún is a municipality of Almería province, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Demographics See also *List of municipalities in Almería Almería (province), Almería is a provinces of Spain, province in the Autonomous c ...

is the smallest at .

Municipalities

2007-12-18-04706 Spain Almeria edited.jpg, alt=Panoramic view of Almería,

the province ''The Province'' is a daily newspaper published in Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format in British Columbia by Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, alongside the ''Vancouver Sun'' broadsheet newspaper. Together, they ...

's capital and largest municipality by population. LaRocalla3.JPG, alt=View of a residential area in Roquetas de Mar,

Roquetas de Mar Roquetas de Mar () is a municipality of Almería province, in the autonomous community of Andalucía, Spain. In 2016, the population was 91,965, the municipality with the second highest population in the province behind the capital, the 14th i ...

, the second largest municipality by population in Almería El Ejido aerial.jpg, alt=Aerial view of El Ejido showing many greenhouses surrounding the urban area,

El Ejido El Ejido () is a municipality of Almería province, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It is located 32 km from Almería with a surface area of 227 km2, and as reported in 2014 had 84,144 inhabitants. El Ejido is the centre of pro ...

is the province's third largest municipality by population. VistaNíjar.jpg, alt=View of Níjar with a church in the middle and some green hills in the background,

, Almería's fourth largest municipality by population

Notes

References

Works cited

* * * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:List of municipalities in Almeria Almeria