Bairro is a Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 word and refers to a community or region within a city or municipality. Bairros exist in the majority of large cities in the world. Related words in English include neighborhood, district

District

Districts are a type of administrative division, in some countries managed by a local government. They vary greatly in size, spanning entire regions or counties, several municipalities, or subdivisions of municipalities.-Austria:...

, borough

Borough

A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....

 or subdivision

Subdivision (land)

Subdivision is the act of dividing land into pieces that are easier to sell or otherwise develop, usually via a plat. The former single piece as a whole is then known in the United States as a subdivision...

. Bairro is cognate with the Germanic berg, burg, borg, burgh, borough, etc; and also the Spanish barrio

Barrio

Barrio is a Spanish word meaning district or neighborhood.-Usage:In its formal usage in English, barrios are generally considered cohesive places, sharing, for example, a church and traditions such as feast days...

, all of which descend from the same Proto-Indo European root.

In Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, the word applies to urban areas in cities, in which the bairros have a role only in localization, without any specific administrative function. Some cities' bairros have defined territorial limits, while most follow the popular definition among its citizens.

In Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, subdivisions in only a few densely-populated urban regions are called bairros, though these do not have any administrative power. An example is the Bairro Alto

Bairro Alto

Bairro Alto is an area of central Lisbon, Portugal.The first terrain division occurred around 1500, when the court of D.Manuel I moved from the castle to the royal palace in Terreiro do Paço...

 in Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

. Freguesia

Freguesia

Freguesia is the Portuguese term for a secondary local administrative unit in Portugal and some of its former colonies, and a former secondary local administrative unit in Macau, roughly equivalent to an administrative parish. A freguesia is a subdivision of a concelho, the Portuguese synonym term...

is the more common subdivision in Portugal.

In Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

, bairros are administrative subdivisions of urban districts with important functions in the identification of the residents and determine the attributes of the area in regards to construction or agriculture, much like zoning

Zoning

Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...

. They are directed by secretários.