Counties of Cape Verde

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Updates: 

Manuel de Sousa, in the Portuguese Wikipedia, points out that the spelling "Paúl" violates the rules of spelling in Portuguese. (Specifically, you must never place an accent on the letters "i" and "u" when they are preceded by a vowel which does not form a diphthong with them; occur in stressed syllables that are the last or next-to-last in the word; AND they form a syllable with the following "nh", "l", "m", "n", "r", or "z".) However, most standard sources seem to be unaware of the spelling rule. In keeping with the policy of this site to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, I list Paúl as the name of the concelho.

Most sources say that the capital of Sal county is Espargos. I had previously reported that it was Santa Maria, based on the CIA map. The capital of Maio county is Vila do Maio, but an alternate (obsolete?) name for that city is Porto Inglês, which appears in some sources.

José Branco writes that five new concelhos were formed in 2005: Ribeira Grande de Santiago (split from Praia); São Lourenço dos Órgãos (split from Santa Cruz); São Salvador do Mundo (split from Santa Catarina); Santa Catarina do Fogo (split from São Filipe); and Tarrafal de São Nicolau (split from São Nicolau). I will try to find more information about these changes. The government of Ribeira Grande de Santiago was installed on 2005-07-23; its capital is Santiago de Cabo Verde; it has around 10,000 population and 164 km.², and consists of the parishes of Santíssimo Nome de Jesus and São João Baptista. That of São Salvador do Mundo was installed on 2005-07-19; of São Lourenço dos Órgãos, on 2005-07-21; of Santa Catarina do Fogo, on 2005-07-25; and of Tarrafal de São Nicolau, 2005-08-03. I am postponing adding these to the table until I can get more complete information.

A web page called Portrait Administratif , which purports to belong to the Cape Verde embassy to France, lists some information for counties and parishes.

Note: Portuguese for council is conselho; for county (specifically, one of the counties into which Cape Verde is divided), concelho. The two words are easy to confuse.

FIPS Publication Change Notice No. 9, affecting FIPS PUB 10-4, was issued on 2004-10-01. It assigns FIPS codes to the five newest counties. It also changes the FIPS codes of the old counties from which the new ones were formed. The new codes are shown in the table below. Apparently FIPS has never issued a code for Porto Novo county.

The Instituto Nacional de Estatística of Cape Verde has developed a hierarchical nomenclature, or set of codes, for the geographical structure of the country. It is referred to as CGN-CV (Código Geográfico Nacional de Cabo Verde: National Geographic Code of Cape Verde). There are PDF documents containing a general description  of the code and its actual contents . There is a seven-digit code for each of 4,526 places in Cape Verde. The first five digits of a code represent the zone in which the place is located. The first three digits represent a parish (freguesia); the first two, a county (concelho); and the first digit alone, one of the nine islands. Only the counties and parishes are administrative divisions of Cape Verde.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-2 was published on 2002-05-21. It shows the changed subdivisions as described in the following paragraph. It gives the name of São Miguel as "Calheta de São Miguel". All the new counties are in Sotavento district.

According to the Instituto Nacional de Estatística  (INE) and other sources, sometime between 1980 and 1991, Mosteiros, São Domingos, São Filipe, and São Miguel counties were formed, and Fogo county disappeared. Oddly, none of the major reference works mentioned them until 2000, and even then, one of them was still left off the list.

Country overview: 

Cape Verde had been a Portuguese colony for more than five centuries when it was granted its independence on 1975-07-05.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Kap Verde, Kapverdiske Øer
2. Dutch: Kaapverdië, Republiek Kaapverdië (formal)
3. English: Republic of Cape Verde (formal)
4. Finnish: Kap Verde
5. French: Cap-Vert m
6. German: Kap Verde, Kapverden (Swiss), Kap Verde Inseln fp, Republik f Kap n Verde
7. Icelandic: Grænhöfðaeyjar
8. Italian: Capo m Verde
9. Norwegian: Kapp Verde, Republikken Kapp Verde (formal)
10. Portuguese: Cabo Verde, República f de Cabo m Verde (formal) (n in Portugal)
11. Spanish: Cabo Verde, República f de Cabo m Verde (formal)
12. Swedish: Kap Verde

Origin of name: 

After Cap Vert, Senegal (Portuguese Cabo Verde: green cape)

Primary subdivisions: 

Cape Verde is divided into seventeen concelhos (counties). There is a national organization for the governing bodies of these divisions, the National Association of Cape Verdean Municipalities ; it calls them municípios.

Further subdivisions:

See the Parishes of Cape Verde page.

Territorial extent: 

1. Smaller islands are usually contained in the nearest county on a larger island.
2. Boa Vista Island corresponds to Boa Vista county.
3. Brava Island corresponds to Brava county (along with Rei and Rombo Islands).
4. Fogo Island corresponds to Mosteiros and São Filipe counties.
5. Maio Island corresponds to Maio county.
6. Sal Island corresponds to Sal.
7. Santo Antão Island corresponds to Paúl, Porto Novo, and Ribeira Grande counties.
8. São Nicolau Island corresponds to São Nicolau.
9. São Tiago (or Santiago) Island corresponds to Praia, Santa Catarina, Santa Cruz, São Domingos, São Miguel, and Tarrafal counties.
10. São Vicente Island corresponds to São Vicente (along with Santa Luzia Island).

Origins of names: 

1. Barlavento: Portuguese for windward. Prevailing winds are from the northeast, and these islands are to the north.
2. Boa Vista: Portuguese for good view.
3. Brava: Portuguese for wild.
4. Fogo: Portuguese for fire. Island has an active volcano.
5. Maio: Portuguese for May. Island was discovered in May 1460 by António de Noli and Diogo Gomes.
6. Paúl: Portuguese for marsh.
7. Praia: Portuguese for beach.
8. Ribeira Grande: Portuguese for big creek.
9. Sal: Portuguese for salt. There were salt mines there.
10. São Vicente: Island discovered on Saint Vincent's feast day, 1462-01-22.
11. Sotavento: Portuguese for leeward.

Change history: 

1. Note: History is incomplete until 1971.
2. 1712: Capital of Cape Verde Islands moved from Ribeira Grande (also known as Cidade Velha, "old city") to Praia.
3. ~1894: Paúl county merged with Ribeira Grande, which thereby became the only county on Santo Antão island.
4. 1935: Sal county split from Boa Vista.
5. ~1971: Porto Novo county split from Paúl.
6. 1971: Santa Cruz county split from Praia. At this time, the divisions of Cape Verde were as shown in this table:

1. ~1988: São Domingos county formed by taking Nossa Senhora da Luz and São Nicolau Tolentino parishes from Praia.
2. 1991: Mosteiros county formed by taking Nossa Senhora da Ajuda parish from Fogo county. The remainder of Fogo county renamed São Filipe county.
3. ~1991: São Miguel county (area 91 km.²) formed by taking São Miguel Arcanjo parish from Tarrafal county.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Paúl: Paoul (French); Paul (corrected spelling)
2. São Miguel: Calheta de São Miguel (variant)

Population history: