1. Geography
Catalonia presents a great variety of geographic features in a space of 32000km2 and 580km of coast.
Seven million people inhabit in Catalonia. Barcelona is the capital and it is divided in 4 provinces (Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida and Girona). In addition, the Catalan administration subdivides it in 41 regions. There are not a lot of people living in the mountain regions; they are located in the north of Catalonia and are the following ones: Vall d’Aran, Alta Ribagorça, Pallars Jussà, Pallars Sobirà, Alt Urgell, Cerdanya, Berguedà and Garrotxa. The relief of the inner regions is varied without great changes. They are located in the Central Depression and are: Noguera, Solsonès, Segrià, Urgell, Pla d’Urgell, Segarra, Osona, Bages, Anoia, Conca de Barberà, Garrigues, Pla de l’Estany, Gironès, Vallès oriental, Vallès occidental, Alt Penedès, Alt Camp, Priorat, Ribera d’Ebre and Terra Alta. The seaside regions are extended from the north to the south and they are: Alt Empordà, Baix Empordà, Selva, Maresme, Barcelonès, Baix Llobregat, Garraf, Baix Penedès, Tarragonès, Baix Camp, Baix Ebre and Montsià.
Nowadays in Catalonia there are 946 municipalities. In 28 of these there are less than 100 inhabitants; in 492 there are between 100 and 1000 residents; in 254 between 1001 and 5000; in 120 between 5001 and 20000; in 31 between 20001 and 50000; and in 21 there are more than 50000 citizens.
Catalonia borders on the Mediterranean Sea to the east, on France and Andorra to the north, and on the communities of Aragó and València to the west and the south. This location has developed a very intense relation with the rest of Mediterranean countries and continental Europe.
The main mountains are the PrePyrenean, the Pyrenees, the Central Depression, and the Catalan Mediterranean System, in addition to the flat coasts and the Cross-sectional Mountain range.
The climate is Mediterranean, with many hours of sun, mild in winter and warm in summer. In the Pyrenees the temperatures are around under 0 degrees, there are high precipitations and a lot of snow in winter. People living in the seaside can enjoy mild climate, with temperatures that increase from the north to the south, but light rain. In the inner regions they have a continental climate, with cold winters and very warm summers.
Next attached maps will help us to understand the climate, the relief and the local division of Catalonia.
Catalonia Relief
Catalan Rivers
Catalan Regions
Geological map
Seismic zones in Catalonia
Road comunications
Catalonia vegetation
Density of population in Catalonia
Torredembarra air photo
2, History
2.1. The roots of Catalonia
The territory well-known nowadays as Catalonia was colonized by the Greeks, which founded Emporion (Empúries) and Rode (Roses) in 600 b. C.
The arrival of Greek, Phoenician and Carthaginian people and their own culture created a great influence on Iberians, the people who were living there in that moment.
Emporion and Rome signed a strong alliance during the Punic wars (wars between Rome and Carthage). In the Greek colony located in the north of Catalonia, Emporion, disembarked the Roman armies, and from there, they initiated the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
The roman conquest finished at the end of 1st century. Latin was the official language, an urban organization was created, and the countryside and the routes of communication were adapted to the necessities of the conquerors. Tarraco (Tarragona) became capital of the Tarraconensis (province which included the territory between the Pyrenees and Cartagena) and became one of the great political and religious centers of Hispania. Even an archbishopric was created there when Christianity arrived.
The Visigoths came after the Romans and maintained the political and territorial structures of the Roman Empire. Even so, the Visigoth system ended with the Muslim conquest of the peninsula. The first Muslims who arrived in Catalonia did it in 714. In 720, a part of the Iberian Peninsula had been conquered by Muslims and this place was already well-known as Al-Andalus.
In 785 the Francs occupied Girona, and in 801 they conquered Barcelona.
The rest of Pyrenees counties (that formed the Hispanic Marca) signed an alliance around the county of Barcelona. The first counts were franc. From Hairy Guifré (878 - 897), the county of Barcelona was hereditary.
2.2. The construction of Catalonia
The name of Catalonia comes from “land of castles” and began to be used in the middle of XIIth century to designate the set of counties that formed the Hispanic Marca. Then it became independent from the Francs.
This territory, known like Old Catalonia, with a feudal society, expanded during XIth and XIIth centuries, in the days of the count Ramon Berenguer III, the first monarch in Catalonia. This expansion went towards the south, the Mediterranean islands and the north (Occitania).
In 1137 the catalan-aragonese Crown was founded. The count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona and Peronella, princess of Aragon, were married. This situation allowed continuing the feudal expansion, towards the south and the Muslim country: Tortosa (conquered in 1148) and Lleida (1149).
2.3. Mediterranean expansion
During XIIIth century and at the beginning of XIVth century, Catalan influence expanded. The Aragon Crown conquered Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Valencia.
At the same time the nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie shared the political power. This was the origin of the Delegation of the General at the end of XIIIth century, and well-known as Generalitat from XIVth century.
In the middle of XIVth century the demographic, economic and political crisis began due to the plague, and finally in XVth century, a civil war began.
2.4. The problems between Catalonia and the Hispanic monarchy
Catalonia was during centuries an imperfect sovereignty but with their own institutions, constitutions and rights. But in 1469 Ferran II of Aragon and Isabel of Castile were married.
During XVIth and XVIIth centuries Catalonia lived a period of crisis. Meanwhile there was a Spanish “Gold Century”.
The battle between Spain and Catalonia continued in XVIIth century. The new shock was the Harvesters War (1640 - 1659), that finally ended with the treaty of the Pyrenees. According to that, Rossello and Cerdanya were under France, and the Catalan political institutions were controlled by the monarchy.
2.5. Philip V: 11-9-1714 and Decree of New Plant
The Succession war was a fight for the political power in Spain and all the countries in Europe were involved. Catalonia supported the house of Austria because it promised to maintain the constitutions and the institutions of the country.
Even so, 11th of September of 1714 Barcelona was surrendered by Spanish troops. Finally, the war ended with the treaty of Utrecht, and the French dynasty of the Borbons with Philip V took possession of the Spanish Crown. He restored an absolutist regime, and therefore, he abolished the institutions and the constitutional system of the old Aragon Crown with the decree of New Plant (1716), in which Catalonia disappeared as state and it was integrated within the Spanish monarchy.
The decree also replaced the Catalan language by the Spanish language in fields like education, administration... Luckily Catalan stayed in the familiar scope.
There was a declivity of the Catalan language and culture. But both rised again with the Renaixença in XIXth century.
After the war, the economy, the agriculture, the commerce and the manufactures were the bases for the industrialization in the following century.
2.6. Catalonia, the factory of Spain
At XIXth century, Catalonia was the most industrialized region of Spain. This industrial development took place between 1833 (first steam machine in Barcelona) and the first quarter of XXth century.
The expansion created a conflicting society and a discrepancy respect the Spanish State, which was incapable to assume the interests of the Catalan society.
Due to all these causes, the movements that recognized the Catalan personality took place in the political field. Finally, from the first half of the century, the Catalan language and culture grew again.
2.7. Catalonia: region or nation?
The Renaixença was a cultural, historical and literary movement based on the recovery of the language and the culture of Catalonia. But slowly the movement took a directed political look towards the self-government for Catalonia.
During the last part of XIXth century, the catalanism (progressive and conservative) was slowly growing. Simultaneously, it exposed the first political programs (Bases of Manresa, 1892), and generated a claimed cultural and associative movement.
In addition to this, the political catalanism became stronger in 1898, when Spain lost the colonies of Cuba and Philippines.
In 1901 the first modern political party was born in Catalonia and Spain: the Lliga Regionalista, that later became Solidaritat Catalana. This party won the elections of 1906 with the political program that Prat de la Riba had formulated to “the Catalan nationality”.
Even so, the social tensions continued and produced the Tragic Week (1909) and the foundation of the CNT (anarcosindicalist tendency union).
Finally the political catalanism constituted the Mancomunidad (first test of self-government) in 1914. In any case it finished very early, when Spanish dictator Primo de Rivera annulled it in 1923.
In 1931, with the Second Republic proclamation, Catalonia returned to have own autonomy with the Generalitat, and democratic and cultural normality. This period was interrupted by the outbreak of the Spanish civil war.
2.8. Franco’s regime
During the winter of 1939 Catalonia was occupied by Franco’s army. Exiles, the death and the repression of numerous republican militants and parties and labour unions of all Spain were the signals of the victory of General Franco. The new regime suppressed the Statute of Catalonia and prohibited the public use of the Catalan language. Also, the president of the Generalitat, Lluís Companys, was killed in 1940 in Barcelona, after being captured in France by the Nazis.
At the end of the long post-war period, Spain experienced an economic expansive period (the “thirty glorious years”, 1945 - 1975) because of the entrance of Catalonia and Spain in the European development.
This factor and the necessity of wage labor for the industry created a massive migratory movement coming from the south of Spain. And, consequently, a great increase of the population of Catalonia, that increased from 3 to 6 million inhabitants between 1950 and 1980.
2.9. Return to the democracy and the autonomy
In 1975 Franco died and Spain evolved towards a democratic and autonomic state according to the Constitution of 1978.
In 1977, the Generalitat of Catalonia with the exiled president Josep Tarradellas, was recovered. In 1979 the Statute of autonomy of Catalonia was approved. Spain became a member of the European Union in 1986.
Between 1980 and 2003, Jordi Pujol was the president of the Generalitat (from Convergència i Unió, a catalanist electoral coalition). Pasqual Maragall, militant of the Socialists Party in Catalonia, who had been Barcelona mayor from 1982 to 1997, was the next president. Nowadays Jose Montilla, socialist, is the president of the Generalitat.
These has been years of economic and political modernization in all Spain, and has approached the country to the European Union and consolidated the personality and the Catalan culture.
Author: Eduard Virgili