The present Mayor is António Pica Tereno, elected by the Unitary Democratic Coalition.

Barrancos is famous in Portugal for its festival, which takes place each year during the last four days of August, and where traditional bullfighting occurs in the town's main square.

The territory where the Barrancos municipality stands today was initially conquered from the Moors in 1167, by Gonçalo Mendes da Maia, and the area's population was ordered by D. Sancho I in 1200.

The original municipality was then located in the village of Noudar, which would only be definitively incorporated in the Kingdom of Portugal in the year 1295, when it was granted foral by D. Dinis.

Noudar village was extinct in 1825, beginning a slow process of abandonment and migration to Barrancos.