Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy. Its territory is situated on the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, to the south of the Pyrenees mountain range. Catalonia is administratively divided into four provinces or eight vegueries (regions), which are in turn divided into 43 comarques. With a population of 8,124,126, it is the 2nd-most populous autonomous community of Spain, and the capital and largest city, Barcelona, is the 2nd-most populous city in Spain and the 5th-most populous urban area in the European Union.
Modern-day Catalonia comprises most of the medieval and early modern Principality of Catalonia, with the remainder of the northern area now part of France's Pyrénées-Orientales. It is bordered by France (Occitanie) and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, and the Spanish autonomous communities of Aragon to the west and Valencia to the south. In addition to its approximately 580 km of coastline, Catalonia also has major high landforms such as the Pyrenees and the Pre-Pyrenees, the Transversal Range (Serralada Transversal) or the Central Depression. The official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan. Additionally, Catalan Sign language is recognized since 2010 upon Law 17/2010.
In 1137, the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon formed a dynastic union, resulting in a composite monarchy, the Crown of Aragon. Within the Crown, Barcelona and the other Catalan counties merged into a state, the Principality of Catalonia, with its distinct institutional system, such as Courts, Generalitat, and Constitutions, being the base and promoter for the Crown's Mediterranean trade and expansionism. Catalan literature flourished. In 1516, Charles V became monarch of the crowns of Aragon and Castile, retaining both their previous distinct institutions and legislation. Growing tensions led to the revolt of the Principality of Catalonia (1640–1652), briefly as a republic under French protection. By the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), the northern parts of Catalonia were ceded to France. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), the states of the Crown of Aragon sided against the Bourbon Philip V, but following Barcelona's capitulation (11 September 1714) he imposed a unifying administration across Spain via the Nueva Planta decrees which suppressed Catalonia's institutions and legal system, thus ending its separate status. Catalan as a language of government and literature was eclipsed by Spanish.
In the 19th century, Napoleonic and Carlist Wars affected Catalonia, however, it experienced industrialisation, as well as a cultural renaissance coupled with incipient nationalism and several workers' movements. The Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939) granted self-governance to Catalonia, restoring the Generalitat as its government. After the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the Francoist dictatorship enacted repressive measures, abolishing self-government and banning again the official use of the Catalan language. After a harsh autarky, from the late 1950s Catalonia saw rapid economic growth, drawing many workers from across Spain and making it a major industrial and touristic hub. During the Spanish transition to democracy (1975–1982), the Generalitat and Catalonia's self-government were reestablished, remaining one of the most economically dynamic communities in Spain.
In the 2010s until the 2020s, there was growing support for Catalan independence. On 27 October 2017, the Catalan Parliament unilaterally declared independence following a referendum that was deemed unconstitutional. The Spanish State enforced direct rule by removing the Catalan government and calling a snap regional election. The Spanish Supreme Court imprisoned seven former Catalan ministers on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds, while several others—including then-President Carles Puigdemont—fled to other European countries. Those in prison were pardoned in 2021.
Etymology and pronunciation
The name "Catalonia" (Medieval Latin: Cathalaunia), spelled Cathalonia, began to be used for the homeland of the Catalans (Cathalanenses) in the late 11th century and was probably used before as a territorial reference to the group of counties that comprised part of the March of Gothia and the March of Hispania under the control of the Count of Barcelona and his relatives. The origin of the name Catalunya is subject to diverse interpretations because of a lack of evidence.
One theory suggests that Catalunya derives from the name Gothia (or Gauthia) Launia ("Land of the Goths"), since the origins of the Catalan counts, lords and people were found in the March of Gothia, known as Gothia, whence Gothland > Gothlandia > Gothalania > Cathalaunia > Catalonia is theoretically derived. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine chroniclers claimed that Catalania derives from the local medley of Goths with Alans, initially constituting a Goth-Alania.
Other theories suggest:
- Catalunya derives from the term "land of castles", having evolved from the term castlà or castlan, the medieval term for a castellan (a ruler of a castle). This theory therefore suggests that the names Catalunya and Castile have a common root.
- The source is the Celtic catalauni, meaning "chiefs of battle", similar to the Celtic given name *Katuwalos; although the area is not known to have been occupied by the Celtiberians, a Celtic culture was present within the interior of the Iberian Peninsula in pre-Roman times.
- The Lacetani, an Iberian tribe that lived in the area and whose name, due to the Roman influence, could have evolved by metathesis to Katelans and then Catalans.
- Miguel Vidal, finding serious shortcomings with earlier proposals (such as that an original -t- would have, by normal sound laws in the local Romance languages, developed into -d-), suggested an Arabic etymology: qattāl (قَتَّال, pl. qattālūn قَتَّالُون) – meaning "killer" – could have been applied by Muslims to groups of raiders and bandits on the southern border of the Marca Hispanica. The name, originally derogatory, could have been reappropriated by Christians as an autonym. This is comparable to attested development of the term Almogavar in nearby areas. In this model, the name Catalunya derives from the plural qattālūn while the adjective and language name català derives from the singular qattāl, both with the addition of common Romance suffixes.
In English, Catalonia is pronounced . The native name, Catalunya, is pronounced [kətəˈluɲə] in Central Catalan, the most widely spoken variety, and [kataˈluɲa] in North-Western Catalan. The Spanish name is Cataluña ([kataˈluɲa]), and the Aranese name is Catalonha ([kataˈluɲa]).
History
Prehistory
The first known human settlements in what is now Catalonia were at the beginning of the Middle Paleolithic. The oldest known trace of human occupation is a mandible found in Banyoles, described as pre-Neanderthal, that is, some 200,000 years old; other sources suggest it to be only about one third that old. There are important remains from the Epipalaeolithic or Mesolithic, dated between 8000 and 5000 BC. The most important sites from these eras, all excavated in the region of Moianès, are the Balma del Gai (Epipaleolithic) and the Balma de l'Espluga. The Neolithic era began in Catalonia around 5000 BC, although the population was slower to develop fixed settlements thanks to the abundance of woods, which allowed the continuation of a fundamentally hunter-gatherer culture, for example, La Draga at Banyoles, an "early Neolithic village which dates from the end of the 6th millennium BC".
The Bronze Age occurred between 1800 and 700 BC. There were some known settlements in the low Segre zone. The Bronze Age coincided with the arrival of the Indo-Europeans through the Urnfield Culture, whose successive waves of migration began around 1200 BC, and they were responsible for the creation of the first proto-urban settlements. Around the middle of the 7th century BC, the Iron Age arrived in Catalonia.
Pre-Roman and Roman period
In pre-Roman times, the area that is now Catalonia was populated by the Iberians, namely the Ilergetes, Indigetes and Lacetani (Cerretains), who also maintained relations with the peoples of the Mediterranean. Some urban agglomerations became relevant, including Lleida, Hibera (perhaps Amposta or Tortosa) or Indika (Ullastret). Coastal trading colonies were established by the ancient Greeks, who settled around the Gulf of Roses, in Emporion (Empúries) and Roses in the 8th century BCE.
After the Punic Wars, the victorious Roman Republic first took control of the northeast of Iberia and became part of Hispania, the westernmost part of the Roman Empire. Tarraco (now Tarragona) was one of the most important Roman cities in Hispania and the capital of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis. Other important cities of the Roman period are Ilerda (Lleida), Dertosa (Tortosa), Gerunda (Girona) as well as the ports of Empuriæ (formerly Emporion) and Barcino (now Barcelona). As for the rest of Hispania, the Ius Italicum (jurisdiction of Roman law) was granted to all cities under the reign of Vespasian (69–79), while Roman citizenship was granted to all free men of the empire by the Constitutio Antoniniana in 212 (Tarraco, the capital, was already a colony under Roman law since 45 BCE). It was a rich agricultural province (olive oil, wine, wheat), and the first centuries of the Empire saw the construction of roads (the most important being the Via Augusta, parallel to Mediterranean coastline) and infrastructure like Roman aqueducts.
Conversion to Christianity, attested in the 3rd century, was completed in urban areas in the 4th century. Although Hispania remained under Roman rule and did not fall under the rule of Vandals, Suebi and Alans in the 5th century, the main cities suffered frequent sacking and some deurbanisation.
Middle Ages
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area was conquered by the Visigoths and was ruled as part of the Visigothic Kingdom for almost two and a half centuries. the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula began in 711 and in 718, Catalonia came under Muslim control and became part of al-Andalus, a province of the Umayyad Caliphate. From the reconquest of the County of Roussillon in 760, to the 801 conquest of Barcelona, Francia took control of the area between Septimania and the Llobregat from the Umayyads and created heavily militarised, self-governing counties. These counties formed part of the historiographically known as the Gothic (Septimania) and Spanish Marches, a buffer zone in the south of Francia in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula that would act as a defensive barrier against further invasions by the Umayyads, who had established the independent Emirate of Córdoba in 751 with the fall of the Caliphate to the Abbasid dynasty.
The counties of the Marches came under the rule of the counts of Barcelona known as the Bellonids, who were Frankish vassals nominated by the Carolingian Empire and the successor state of Francia, to whom they were feudatories (801–988). At the end of the 9th century, the Bellonid Count of Barcelona, Wilfred the Hairy (878–897), made his titles hereditary and thus founded the House of Barcelona, which reigned in Catalonia until 1410.
In 988 Borrell II, Count of Barcelona, did not recognise the new French king Hugh Capet as his king, evidencing the loss of dependency from Frankish rule and confirming his successors (from Ramon Borrell onwards) as independent of the Capetian crown. At the beginning of eleventh century the Catalan counties experienced an important process of feudalisation, however, the efforts of church's sponsored Peace and Truce Assemblies and the intervention of Ramon Berenguer I of Barcelona (1035–1076) in the negotiations with the rebel nobility resulted in the partial restoration of the comital authority under the new feudal order. To fulfill that purpose, Ramon Berenguer began the modification of the legislation in the written Usages of Barcelona, being one of the first European compilations of feudal law. The earliest known use of the name "Catalonia" for these counties dates to 1117.
In 1137, Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona accepted King Ramiro II of Aragon's proposal to receive the Kingdom of Aragon and to marry Petronilla of Aragon, establishing the dynastic union of the County of Barcelona with Aragon, resulting in a composite monarchy later known as the Crown of Aragon, and making the Catalan counties that were vassalized or merged with the County of Barcelona into a principality of the Aragonese Crown under the House of Barcelona. During the reign of his son Alfonso, Catalonia was regarded as a legal entity for the first time in 1173, while the Usages of Barcelona were compiled in the process who would turn them into the law and custom of Catalonia (Consuetudinem Cathalonie), being considered one of the "milestones of Catalan political identity".
In 1258, by means of the Treaty of Corbeil, James I of Aragon renounced his family rights and dominions in Occitania, while the king of France, Louis IX, formally relinquished to any historical claim of feudal lordship he might have over the Catalan counties. This treaty confirmed, from French point of view, the independence of the Catalan counties already established the previous three centuries.
As a coastal land, Catalonia became the base of the Aragonese Crown's maritime forces, which spread the power of the Crown in the Mediterranean, turning Barcelona into a powerful and wealthy city. In the period of 1164–1410, new territories, the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Sicily, and, briefly, the Duchies of Athens and Neopatras, were incorporated into the dynastic domains of the House of Barcelona. The expansion was accompanied by a great development of the Catalan trade, creating an extensive trade network across the Mediterranean which competed with those of the maritime republics of the Genoa and Venice.
At the same time, the Principality of Catalonia developed a complex institutional and political system based on the concept of a pact between the estates of the realm and the king. The legislation had to be passed by the General Court of Catalonia (Corts Catalanes), one of the first parliamentary bodies of Europe that, after 1283, officially obtained the power to pass legislation with the monarch. The Courts were composed of the three estates organized into "arms" (braços), were presided over by the monarch, and approved the Constitutions of Catalonia, which established a compilation of rights for the inhabitants of the Principality. In order to collect general taxes, the Catalan Courts of 1359 established a permanent representative body, known as the Generalitat de Catalunya, which gained considerable political power over the next centuries.
The domains of the Aragonese Crown were severely affected by the Black Death and by later outbreaks of the plague. Between 1347 and 1497 Catalonia lost 37 percent of its population.
In 1410, the last reigning monarch of the House of Barcelona, King Martin I, died without legitimate heir. Under the Compromise of Caspe (1412), the representatives of the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia and the Principality of Catalonia appointed Ferdinand from the Castilian House of Trastámara as King of the Crown of Aragon. During the reign of his son, John II, the persistent economic crisis and social and political tensions in the Principality led to the Catalan Civil War (1462–1472) and the War of the Remences (1462–1486), which left Catalonia exhausted. The Sentencia Arbitral de Guadalupe (1486) liberated the remença serfs from the feudal "evil customs".