Nine municipalities, from the highlands of Santa Catarina to the harbour at Cidade Velha. Where a family is from on this island is usually the first thing anyone asks.
Santa Catarina
Interior
Municipal seat · Assomada
Assomada · Chã de Tanque
Assomada’s market brings produce, traders, and families together in the highlands. Chã de Tanque has housed the Tabanka Museum since 2010, connecting the municipality to the associations, music, and mutual help that sustain community life.
Fruit and vegetable market · Assomada · 26 February 2025Photo credit and licence
A family-history starting pointAsk for the smaller settlement as well as Santa Catarina. A remembered market route can help place a family’s everyday movements.
Research this concelho
Parish: Santa Catarina (Also found as Santa Catarina do Mato in older records). Parish registers are filed by parish, so start there for baptisms, marriages, and burials, then civil registration.
Boundary caution: confirm which municipality held the parish in the record’s own year. See how the parishes moved.
At Chão Bom, the former prison camp preserves the memory of repression and resistance. The municipality also holds coastal and inland communities whose working lives, celebrations, and family histories extend beyond that monument.
Local history
1917Tarrafal becomes a municipality, joining the parishes of Santo Amaro Abade and São Miguel Arcanjo. Until 1912 Tarrafal had been the seat of Santa Catarina.
1936–1974The Portuguese state runs the prison camp at Chão Bom. The site is now the Museum of Resistance.
1997São Miguel Arcanjo separates as the municipality of São Miguel. Tarrafal keeps a single parish.
A family-history starting pointDistinguish the town from the municipality, and keep the date beside an older place-name.
Cabo Verde: Formação e Extinção de uma Sociedade Escravocrata
São Miguel
North
Municipal seat · Calheta de São Miguel
Calheta de São Miguel · Espinho Branco
São Miguel connects coastal life with the communities inland, including the Rabelados at Espinho Branco. Living weaving knowledge is also part of its story: IPC’s Santiago inventory records local weavers José Carlos and Jorge Gomes, known as Vito.
Local history
1917–1997The parish of São Miguel Arcanjo forms part of Tarrafal municipality.
1940sRabelado families who refused the Church’s liturgical reforms withdraw into the interior and its mountains.
1997São Miguel becomes a municipality under a 1996 law. Calheta is raised to a town and becomes the seat.
c. 2000Under Nho Agostinho, Rabelado families from the surrounding mountains gather at Espinho Branco, now the largest Rabelado community.
2025The national Panu di Téra inventory works with living master weavers here.
The eastern coast and its agricultural valleys are also places in the history of funaná. IPC’s account connects Antão Barreto with Achada Ponta and Sema Lopi with Ribeira Seca, giving the music names and places beyond a general label of rural Santiago.
Local history
1940sThe east-coast valleys are among the areas where Rabelado families first take refuge during the persecution.
1971Santa Cruz becomes a municipality, formed from two parishes of Praia, with its seat at Pedra Badejo.
2005The parish of São Lourenço dos Órgãos separates to form its own municipality. Santa Cruz keeps Santiago Maior.
A family-history starting pointSão Lourenço dos Órgãos separated from Santa Cruz in 2005. An older reference to Santa Cruz may describe a place now in another municipality.
Parish: Santiago Maior (Also written São Tiago Maior). Parish registers are filed by parish, so start there for baptisms, marriages, and burials, then civil registration.
Boundary caution: confirm which municipality held the parish in the record’s own year. See how the parishes moved.
Valleys and higher ground shape this part of Santiago, including Rui Vaz. When following its music and gatherings, the name of a performing group or a particular village tells more than treating the whole municipality as one cultural setting.
Local history
Before 1994Both of today’s parishes belong to the municipality of Praia.
1994São Domingos becomes a municipality under a 1993 law. Its council takes office in March 1994.
A family-history starting pointAsk about a church, neighbouring settlement, or familiar landmark when a family remembers a place that is absent from a modern map.
Research this concelho
Parishes: Nossa Senhora da Luz; São Nicolau Tolentino. Parish registers are filed by parish, so start there for baptisms, marriages, and burials, then civil registration.
Boundary caution: confirm which municipality held the parish in the record’s own year. See how the parishes moved.
Established as a municipality in 2005 from part of Santa Catarina, São Salvador do Mundo shows why present-day boundaries cannot simply be carried backwards into family history. Picos remains an important name to retain beside the municipality’s name.
Local history
1834Picos is the first seat of the new municipality of Santa Catarina.
2005The parish of São Salvador do Mundo separates from Santa Catarina and becomes a municipality, with its seat at Picos.
A family-history starting pointA changed administrative name is not by itself proof that a family moved. Keep the original wording, date, and parish together.
Rock formations rise above cultivated valleys in the island’s interior. São Jorge dos Órgãos holds the national botanical garden. The municipality was created from Santa Cruz in 2005, not from Santa Catarina.
View from the botanical garden · São Jorge dos Órgãos · 14 January 2011Photo credit and licence
Before 1971The parish of São Lourenço dos Órgãos belongs to the municipality of Praia.
1971It becomes part of the new municipality of Santa Cruz.
2005São Lourenço dos Órgãos becomes a municipality, with its seat at João Teves.
A family-history starting pointRecord smaller valley and field names as well as the municipal seat, João Teves. Check which jurisdiction applied in the year of a document.
Historic Ribeira Grande, now Cidade Velha, connects Santiago’s early settlement with Atlantic slavery and the lives built under and against it. Its World Heritage recognition in 2009 concerns a place whose story belongs to people as well as surviving buildings.
Local history
1462Portuguese settlement begins at Ribeira Grande, the first town built on the island and an early base of the Atlantic slave trade. Ancestors of the Badiu were trafficked through its harbour.
1770The capital moves from Ribeira Grande to Praia.
2005Two parishes separate from Praia to form the municipality of Ribeira Grande de Santiago, with its seat at Cidade Velha.
2009The historic centre is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A family-history starting pointDistinguish the historic town, modern municipality, and island whenever a record uses the name Ribeira Grande.
Parishes: Santíssimo Nome de Jesus; São João Baptista. Parish registers are filed by parish, so start there for baptisms, marriages, and burials, then civil registration.
Boundary caution: confirm which municipality held the parish in the record’s own year. See how the parishes moved.
Sources for this entry:
Cabo Verde: Formação e Extinção de uma Sociedade Escravocrata
The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa
The capital’s neighbourhoods and markets connect urban life with families across Santiago. Most internal migration from the interior has come here, and many Badiu families keep one foot in Praia and one in the concelho they came from. Tabanka associations are part of this urban story too.
Local history
1770Praia replaces Ribeira Grande as the colony’s capital.
1858Praia is raised to city status.
1971–2005Parishes long administered from Praia separate to form Santa Cruz (1971), São Domingos (1994), and Ribeira Grande de Santiago (2005).
1975Praia becomes the capital of independent Cabo Verde.
A family-history starting pointKeep a person’s current address, birthplace, and parents’ places separate. Each answers a different family-history question.
Research this concelho
Parish: Nossa Senhora da Graça. Parish registers are filed by parish, so start there for baptisms, marriages, and burials, then civil registration.
Boundary caution: confirm which municipality held the parish in the record’s own year. See how the parishes moved.
Six of Santiago’s nine municipalities were created after 1970, each from parishes of an older municipality. A record names the municipality of its own day, so the same parish can appear under different names across a family’s documents.
Parish
Municipality today
Earlier municipality
Nossa Senhora da Graça
Praia
Praia throughout
Nossa Senhora da Luz
São Domingos
Praia until 1994
São Nicolau Tolentino
São Domingos
Praia until 1994
Santíssimo Nome de Jesus
Ribeira Grande de Santiago
Praia until 2005
São João Baptista
Ribeira Grande de Santiago
Praia until 2005
Santiago Maior
Santa Cruz
Praia until 1971
São Lourenço dos Órgãos
São Lourenço dos Órgãos
Praia until 1971; Santa Cruz 1971–2005
Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina since 1834
São Salvador do Mundo
São Salvador do Mundo
Santa Catarina 1834–2005
Santo Amaro Abade
Tarrafal
Santa Catarina 1834–1917
São Miguel Arcanjo
São Miguel
Santa Catarina 1834–1917; Tarrafal 1917–1997
Dates follow the laws and anniversary reports cited under each concelho. Boundaries also shifted within municipalities; check the Boletim Oficial for a specific village.
Keep the small place-names
Family history becomes more useful when it is tied to a place. Recording an ancestor’s village, parish, or concelho beside names, dates, family memory, documents, and DNA results can show where different branches connect.
