Catalonia

Catalunya (Catalan)
Cataluña (Spanish)
Catalonha (Occitan)
Catalonia

Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Els Segadors
Capital	Barcelona
Official language(s)	Catalan, Spanish and Aranese.
Area  – Total  – % of Spain	Ranked 6th  32,114 km²  6.3%
Population  – Total (2008)  – % of Spain  – Density	Ranked 2nd  7,354,411  16%  222.16/km²
Demonym  – English  – Spanish  – Catalan	Catalan  catalán (m); catalana (f)  català (m); catalana (f)
Statute of Autonomy	9 September 1932, 31 December 1979 current: 9 August 2006
Parliamentary representation  – Congress seats  – Senate seats	47  16
President	José Montilla Aguilera (PSC)
ISO 3166-2	CT
Generalitat de Catalunya

Catalonia is an Autonomous Community in northeast Spain.

Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,210,508. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the east (580 km coastline). Official languages are Catalan, Spanish and Aranese.

The capital city is Barcelona. Catalonia is divided into forty-one comarques that are part, in turn, of four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its territory corresponds to most of the historical territory of the former Principality of Catalonia.

Catalonia is today an autonomous region within Spain, but in fact has an older history as an independent territory of the Crown of Aragon which in some ways historically predates Spain itself. The region gained its current autonomous status first in the Republican era (1930s) and then again after after Franco's death in 1975 and continues to press for more political and economic autonomy, mainly in the form of the right to collect and spend larger and larger portions of tax money locally. This has been the source of some conflict with other regions of Spain that don't have these expectations.

Etymology

From the 12th century; this is thought to be the first written document in the Catalan language

The name Catalunya (Catalonia) began to be used in the 12th century in reference to the group of counties that comprised the Marca Hispanica, which gradually became independent from the French. The origin of the term is subject to diverse interpretations. The prevalent theory suggests that Catalunya derives from the term "Land of Castles", having evolved from the term castlà, the ruler of a castle. This theory, therefore, suggests that the term castellà ("Castilian") would have been synonymous.

Another theory suggests that Catalunya derives from Gothia, "Land of the Goths," since the Spanish March was one of the places known as Gothia, whence Gothland and Gothlandia theoretically derived, though critics usually consider it rather simplistic. Yet another theory points to the Lacetani, an Iberian tribe that lived in the area, and whose name, due to the Roman influence, could have evolved to Katelans and then Catalans.

Geography

Regions

• The Costa Brava (Wild/Rugged Coast), in the northeast of the country, has rocky cliffs and a mix of pebble beaches and sandy beaches.
• The Costa Daurada (Golden Coast), in the southeast of the country, has sandy beaches.
• The Pyrenees, in the north of the country, on the border with France. It's a quiet place, ideal for nature walks, and adventure sports. A lot of national parks. A place where you should go.
• The Terres de l'Ebre, in the south of the country. With two national parks and a river delta, it's a quiet place with traditions and nature.

Rivers

The rivers can be classified into four groups according to their source.

• Rivers of the Ebre basin, which can be further divided into:
  • the lower basin of the Ebre itself, which corresponds with the comarques of Ribera d'Ebre, Terra Alta, Baix Ebre and Montsià.
  • the basin of the Segre and its affluants, which roughly corresponds, in Catalonia, with the province of Lleida: the basin of the Segre also covers much of Aragon.
• Rivers of the western Pyrenees: Muga, Fluvià, Ter, roughly corresponding with the province of Girona
• Rivers of the Prelitteral Range: Tordera, Besòs, Foix, Gaià, Francolí
• Rivers of the Coastal Range: these are very short and of only local importance

The Llobregat deserves a special mention because of its importance: its basin covers most of the province of Barcelona. It source is in the pyreneean Serra del Cadí in the municipality of Castellar de n'Hug (Berguedà) and its valley is one the main north-south communication routes in Catalonia.

The Aran Valley is the upper valley of the Garonne (la Garona in Catalan, era Garona in Aranese), an Atlanic river which meets the sea near Bordeaux, France. It should be noted that the boundaries of the comarca do not correspond exactly with the watershed, and both the Noguera Ribagorçana and the Noguera Pallaresa have their sources on its territory.

The frontier between Catalonia and the Valencian Community is formed for much of its length by the Sénia, while the Noguera Ribagorçana forms the frontier with Aragon for much of its length.

The Catalan language has two words for "river", riu and riera. The word riera is used for smaller rivers and for streams, and often indicates a seasonal river. Of the above list, only the Gavarresa is commonly classified as a riera, all the others being qualified as rius. The grammatical gender of Anoia is feminine, while that of Ebre is masculine.

Economic importance

The main economic importance of the Catalan rivers is probably the role of their valleys as communication routes, particularly through the Coastal and Prelitteral Ranges. Hence routes inland from Barcelona pass either through the valley of the Llobregat or that of the Besòs, and the Francolí valley is an important route inland from Tarragona.

Irrigation

Irrigation is important in the drier areas of Catalonia, notably in the Central Depression and in the south. The Canal de Aragó i Catalunya and the Canal d'Urgell distribute the waters of the Segre across the comarques of Noguera and Segrià where it is used for growing cereals, almonds and olives. Irrigation is also important in the comarques of Baix Ebre and Montsià, where the cultivation of rice is widespread.

Hydroelectric generation

All of the larger Catalan rivers, with the exception of the Llobregat, have been dammed for hydroelectric power. By far the largest dams are those on the Ebre at Riba-roja and at Flix (Ribera d'Ebre). Other dams include

• on the Noguera Pallaresa: Sallente, Cabdella, Molinos, Tavascan, La Pobla de Segur, Talarn (Pallars Jussà), Terradets (Àger, Noguera)
• on the Noguera Ribagorçana: Escales (below Pont de Suert, Alta Ribagorça), Santa Anna, Moralets, Baserca (Ivars de Noguera)
• on the Segre: Oliana (Alt Urgell), Seròs (Segrià)
• on the Ter: Sau (Vilanova de Sau, Osona), Susqueda (Selva)

Climate

The Medieval church, Sant Climent in Taüll, which is located at the foothills of the Pyrenees.

The quaint town of Cadaqués, a popular tourist destination, is located on the Mediterranean coast.

The climate of Catalonia is diverse. The populated areas lying by the coast in Tarragona, Barcelona and Girona feature a Mediterranean climate. The inland part (including the Lleida province and the inner part of Barcelona) show a mostly continental Mediterranean climate. The Pyreneean peaks have a mountain or even Alpine climate at the highest summits.

In the Mediterranean area, summers are dry, hot and humid with sea breezes, and the maximum temperature is around 30 °C. Summer is the rainiest season in the Pyreneean valleys with frequent storms. Winter is cool or cold depending on the location. It snows frequently in the Pyrenees, and it occasionally snows at lower altitudes, even by the coastline. Overall, spring and autumn are typically the rainiest seasons.

The inland part of Catalonia is hotter and drier in summer. Temperature may reach 35 °C, some days even 40 °C. Nights are cooler there than at the coast with the temperature of around 14° to 16 °C. Fog is not uncommon in valleys and plains, it can be especially resilient and with freezing drizzle episodes during winter by the Segre and other river valleys.

History

Roman amphitheater in Tarragona

Roman aquaduct in Tarragona

Counties of the Marca Hispanica

Catalan Court

Bisbe Irurita Street in Barcelona's Barri Gòtic

Barcelona Cathedral

Santa Maria de Montserrat

Palau de la Música Catalana, built between 1905 and 1908

Like some other areas on the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula, Catalonia was colonized by Ancient Greeks, who settled around the Roses area. Both Greeks and Carthaginians (who, in the course of the Second Punic War, briefly ruled the territory) interacted with the main Iberian substratum. After the Carthaginian defeat, the region became, along with the rest of Hispania, part of the Roman Empire, with Tarraco becoming one of the main Roman posts in the Iberian Peninsula.

After Rome's collapse, the area was subject to Visigothic rule for four centuries. In the eighth century, it came under Moorish al-Andalus control. Still, after the defeat of Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi's troops at Tours in 732, the Franks conquered former Visigoth states that had been captured by the Muslims or had become allied with them in what today is the northernmost part of Catalonia.

Charlemagne created in 795 what came to be known as the Marca Hispanica, a buffer zone beyond the province of Septimania made up of locally administered separate petty kingdoms which served as a defensive barrier between the Umayyad Moors of Al-Andalus and the Frankish Kingdom.

The Catalan culture started to develop in the Middle Ages stemming from a number of these petty kingdoms organized as small counties throughout the northernmost part of Catalonia. The counts of Barcelona were Frankish vassals nominated by the emperor then the king of France, to whom they were feudatories (801-987).

In 987 the count of Barcelona did not recognize the French king Hugh Capet and his new dynasty which put it effectively out of the Frankish rule. Two years later, in 989, Catalonia declared its independence. Then, in 1137, Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona married Queen Petronila of Aragon establishing the dynastic union of the County of Barcelona with the Kingdom of Aragon which was to create the Crown of Aragon.

It was not until 1258, by means of the Treaty of Corbeil, that the king of France formally relinquished his feudal lordship over the counties of the Principality of Catalonia to the king of Aragon James I, descendant of Ramon Berenguer IV. This Treaty transformed the country's de facto independence into a de jure direct transition from French to Aragonese rule. It also solved a historic incongruence. As part of the Crown of Aragon, Catalonia became a great maritime power, helping to expand the Crown by trade and conquest into the Kingdom of Valencia, the Balearic Islands, and even Sardinia or Sicily.

In 1410, King Martin I died without surviving descendants. As a result, by the Pact of Caspe, Ferdinand of Antequera from the Castilian dynasty of Trastamara, received the Crown of Aragon as Ferdinand I of Aragon.

His grandson, King Ferdinand II of Aragon married Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1469; retrospectively, this is seen as the dawn of the Kingdom of Spain. At that point both Castile and Aragon remained distinct territories, each keeping its own traditional institutions, Parliaments and laws. Political power began to shift away from Aragon toward Castile and, subsequently, from Castile to the Spanish Empire.

For an extended period, Catalonia, as part of the former Crown of Aragon, continued to retain its own usages and laws, but these gradually eroded in the course of the transition from feudalism to a modern state, fueled by the kings' struggle to have more centralized territories. Over the next few centuries, Catalonia was generally on the losing side of a series of local conflicts that led steadily to more centralization of power in Spain, like the Reapers' War (1640–1652).

The most significant conflict was the War of the Spanish Succession, which began when Charles II of Spain (the last Spanish Habsburg) died without a successor in 1700. Catalonia, as the other territories which used to form the Crown of Aragon in the Middle Ages, mostly rose up in support of the Habsburg pretender Charles of Austria, while the rest of Spain mostly adhered to the French Bourbon claimant, Philip V. Following the fall of Barcelona on 11 September 1714, the 'special status' of the territories belonging to the former Crown of Aragon and its institutions were abolished by the Nueva Planta decrees, under which all its lands were incorporated, as provinces, into a united Spanish administration, as Spain moved towards a centralized government under the new Bourbon dynasty.

In the latter half of the 19th century, Catalonia became an industrial center; to this day it remains one of the most industrialised parts of Spain. In the first third of the 20th century, Catalonia gained and lost varying degrees of autonomy several times, receiving its first statute of autonomy during the Second Spanish Republic (1931). This period was marked by politic unrest and the preeminence of the Anarchists during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). After the defeat of the Republic in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) which brought General Francisco Franco to power, his regime suppressed any kind of public activities associated with Catalan nationalism, Anarchism, Socialism, Democracy or Communism, such as publishing books on the matter or simply discussing them in open meetings. As part of this suppression the use of Catalan in government-run institutions and in public events was banned. During later stages of the Francoist regime, certain folkoric or religious celebrations in Catalan were resumed and tolerated. Use of Catalan in the mass media was forbidden, but was permitted from the early 1950s in the theater. Publishing in Catalan continued throughout the dictatorship.

After Franco's death (1975) and with the adoption of a democratic Spanish constitution (1978), Catalonia recovered political and cultural autonomy. Today, Catalonia is one of the most economically dynamic regions of Spain. The Catalan capital and largest city, Barcelona, is a major international cultural centre and a major tourism destination.

Economy

The Catalan economy is distinguished in the Spanish context by a more industrial profile. The distribution of sectors is the following one:

• Primary sector: 2.8%. Land dedicated to agricultural use is 33%.
• Secondary sector: 37.2% (compared to Spain's 29%)
• Tertiary sector: 60% (compared to Spain's 67%)

In 2007 the regional GDP of Catalonia was € 202,509 million and per capita GDP was € 24,445 in 2007. In this year, the GDP growth was 3.7%,. In the context of the 2008 financial crisis, Catalonia is expected to suffer a recession amounting to almost a 2% contraction of its regional GDP in 2009

Catalonia is the first tourist destination of Spain. The main tourist destinations of Catalonia are the city of Barcelona, the beaches of the Costa Brava at Girona and the Costa Daurada at Tarragona. In the Pyrenees there are several ski resorts.

Savings banks have a great implantation in Catalonia. 10 of the 46 Spanish savings banks are Catalan and "La Caixa" is the first savings bank of Europe The first private bank originated in Catalonia is Banc Sabadell ranking fourth of the Spanish private banks.

The stock market of Barcelona, which in 2004 traded almost 205,000 million euros, is the second most important of Spain after the Stock market of Madrid and Fira de Barcelona organizes samples and congresses of international character on varied sectors of the economy.

The main economic cost for the Catalan families is the purchase of a house. According to data of the Society of Appraisal on the 31 of December 2005 Catalonia is, after Madrid, the second community of Spain where the price of the house is more expensive: 3,397 euros for a square meter are paid by average. By cities, nevertheless, Barcelona is the most expensive city of Spain, with an average price of 3,700 euros for a square meter.

Transportation

Airports

• Barcelona International Airport (BCN) Barcelona/El Prat de Llobregat {El Prat/Barcelona};
• Girona-Costa Brava Airport (GRO) Girona/Gerona{Vilobi d`Onyar};
• Reus Airport Reus/Tarragona/Costa Daurada (REU){Contanti/Reus/Tarragona};
• Sabadell Airport (QSA){Sabadell SAB)}.

Commercial and passenger ports

• Port of Barcelona
• Port of Tarragona
• Port of Palamós

Roads

There are 12,000 km of roads throughout Catalonia. The principal highway is AP-7 know also as Autopista del Mediterrani. It follows the coast from the French Border to Valencia, located south of Tarragona. The main roads generally radiate from Barcelona. The A-2 and AP-2 connect inland and onward to Madrid.

Railways

Catalonia saw the first railway construction in the Iberian Peninsula in 1848, linking Barcelona with Mataró. Given the topography, most lines radiate from Barcelona. The city has both suburban and inter-city services. The main east coast line runs through the province and connects with French Railways at Portbou on the coast. The railroad companies operating in Catalonia are FGC and RENFE.

High-speed AVE (Alta Velocidad Española) services from Madrid currently reach Lleida, Tarragona, and Barcelona. The official opening between Barcelona and Madrid was on 20 February 2008. The journey between Barcelona and Madrid lasts about two and a half hours. Construction has commenced to extend the high-speed line northwards to connect with the French high-speed network. This new line passes through Girona and a rail tunnel through the Pyrenees.

Politics

Legal status within Spain

The Spanish Constitution of 1978 declares that Spain is an indissoluble nation that recognizes and guarantees the right to self-government of the nationalities and regions that constitute it. Catalonia, alongside Basque Country, Galicia and Andalusia self-ascribed as nationalities in the elaborations of their Statutes of Autonomy – the first three acceding to autonomy automatically – and more recently in their new Statutes or recent amendments Aragon, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands also did.

Both the 1979 Statute of Autonomy and the current one, approved in 2006, state that Catalonia, as a nationality, exercises its self-government constituted as an autonomous community in accordance with the Constitution and with the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, which is its basic institutional law.

The Preamble of the 2006 Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia states the Parliament of Catalonia defined Catalonia as a nation, but that the Spanish Constitution recognizes Catalonia's national reality as a nationality. While this Statute was approved by and sanctioned by both the Catalan and the Spanish parliaments, and later by referendum in Catalonia, it has been legally contested by the surrounding Autonomous Communities of Aragon, Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, as well as by the Partido Popular. The objections are based on various issues such as disputed cultural heritage but, especially, on the Statute's alleged breaches of the principle of "solidarity between regions" enshrined by the Constitution in fiscal and educational matters. As of November 2008, the Constitutional Court of Spain is assessing the constitutionality of the challenged articles; its binding conclusion is expected for 2008.

After Franco's death in 1975 and the adoption of a democratic constitution in Spain in 1978, Catalonia recovered, and extended, the powers granted in the statute of autonomy of 1932 it had lost with the fall of the Second Spanish Republic at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.

The historical region has gradually achieved a greater degree of autonomy since 1979. The Generalitat holds exclusive jurisdiction in various matters including culture, environment, communications, transportation, commerce, public safety and local governments while it shares jurisdiction with the Spanish government in education, health and justice.

There is significant Catalan nationalist sentiment present in a part of the population of Catalonia, which ranges from the desire for independence from Spain expressed by Catalan independentists, to a more generic demand of further autonomy.

Law and government of Catalonia

Girona

The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia is the fundamental organic law, second only to the Spanish Constitution from which the Statute originates. The Catalan Statute of Autonomy establishes that Catalonia is organized politically through the Generalitat de Catalunya, conformed by the Parliament, the Presidency of the Generalitat, the Government or Executive Council and the other institutions created by the Parliament.

The seat of the Executive Council is the city of Barcelona. Since the restoration of the Generalitat through the return of democracy in Spain, the presidents of Catalonia have been Jordi Pujol (1980-2003), Pasqual Maragall (2003-2006) and incumbent José Montilla Aguilera.

Catalonia is divided into four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Local governments include comarques (roughly equivalent to counties), as well as smaller forms of municipal administration.

Security forces

Catalonia has its own police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra, whose origins trace back to the eighteenth century. Since 1980 they are under the commandment of the Generalitat, and since 1994 it is expanding in order to replace the Spain-wide Guardia Civil and Policía Nacional, which report directly to the Homeland Department of Spain. These corps are to retain a certain number of agents within Catalonia to exercise specific functions such as overseeing ports, airports, coasts, international borders, custom offices, identification documents, control of armament amongst others.

Most of the justice system is administered by national judicial institutions. The legal system is uniform throughout Spain, with the exception of so-called "civil law," which is administered separately within Catalonia.

After Navarre and the Basque Country, Catalonia is the Spanish region with the highest degree of autonomy.

Demographics

The autonomous community of Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² with an official population of 7,354,411 (2008) from which immigrants represent an estimated 12.3%.

The Urban Region of Barcelona includes 3,327,872 people and covers an area of 2.268 km² and about 1.7 million persons live in a radius of 15 km from Barcelona. The metropolitan area of the Urban Region includes cities like l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Badalona, Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Cornellà. Other important cities are Sabadell, Tarragona, Lleida, Girona, Mataró, and Reus.

In 1900 the population of Catalonia was 1,984,115 people and in 1970 it was 5,107,606. That increase was produced due to the demographic boom produced in Spain during the 1960s and early 1970s and also to the large-scale internal migration from the rural interior of Spain to its industrial cities. In Catalonia that wave of internal migration arrived from several regions of Spain, especially Andalusia, Murcia and Extremadura.

According to the most recent linguistic census elaborated by the government of Catalonia, a plurality claims Catalan as "their own language" (48.8% Catalan compared to 44.3% Spanish), and in most everyday uses, people who use exclusively Catalan or both languages equally are in the majority. 53.4% of citizens declared Spanish as a native language, either exclusively or along with Catalan.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Catalonia

There are several UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Catalonia:

Dalí Museum, Figueres

• Archaeological Ensemble of Tarraco, Tarragona
• Catalan Romanesque Churches at Vall de Boí
• Poblet Monastery, Poblet, Tarragona province
• Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona
• Works of Antoni Gaudí:
  • Sagrada Família, Barcelona
  • Parc Güell, Barcelona
  • Palau Güell, Barcelona
  • Casa Milà (La Pedrera), Barcelona

Culture

Places of interest

Catalonia has a great variety of different landscapes very close to each other, mountains on the Pyrenees (at the border with France), green hills in the north of the country, agricultural plains on the west and beaches on the east.

• Reus
• Montserrat - A unusual rock mountain, with a Sanctuary on top. It is very popular among Catalans. You can travel there by train (take Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat from Plaça d'Espanya to Montserrat-Aeri) or by bus (they leave from the Plaça de la Universitat in the morning).
• Volcanoes near the city of Olot, and La Fageda d'en Jordà, a very nice forest and extinct volcanoes.
• Adventure sports (in a lot of places in Catalonia like Llavorsí in the Pirineus)
• Barcelona
• Figueres - The Dalí Museum
• Verdú - Museum of Toys and Automata
• La Llacuna- Beautiful Mediterranean outback village, with typical gastronomy and landscapes.
• Les Alexandrias - Rugged western hamlet located near the Aragonese mountain range. Famous for its bull fighting festivals in which the bull holds a red cape and bullfighters run after it.

Languages

Originating in the historic territory of Catalonia, Catalan is one of the three official languages and has enjoyed special status since the approval of the Statute of Autonomy of 1979 which declares it to be the language "proper to Catalonia". The other languages with official status are Spanish, which is the official language throughout Spain, and Aranese (a dialect of Occitan spoken in the Aran Valley).

Under the Franco dictatorship Catalan was, until the 1970s, excluded from the state education system and all other official and public use, including the prohibition of giving children Catalan names. Rural-urban migration originating in other parts of Spain also reduced the social use of the language in urban areas. Lately, a similar sociolinguistic phenomenon has occurred with foreign immigration. In an attempt to reverse this, the re-established self-government institutions of Catalonia embarked on a long-term language policy to increase the use of Catalan and has, since 1983, enforced laws that attempt to protect, and extend, the use of Catalan. Some groups consider these efforts a way to discourage the use of Spanish, while others, including the Catalan government and the European Union consider the policies respectful, or even as an example which "should be disseminated throughout the Union".

Today, Catalan is the language of the Catalan autonomous government and the other public institutions that fall under its jurisdiction. Basic public education is given in Catalan except for two hours per week of Spanish-medium instruction. Businesses are required to display all information (e.g., menus, posters) in Catalan under penalty of fines; there is no obligation to display this information in either Aranese or Spanish, although there is no restriction on doing so in these or other languages and this is often done, in particular in Spanish. The use of fines was introduced in a 1997 linguistic law that aims to increase the use of Catalan. The law ensures that both Catalan and Spanish – being official languages – can be used by the citizens without prejudice in all public and private activities. Even though the Generalitat usually uses Catalan in its communications and notifications addressed to the general population, citizens can also receive information from the Generalitat in Spanish if they so desire.

Also, starting with the Statute of Autonomy of 1979, Aranese (a dialect of Gascon) has been official and subject to special protection in the Aran Valley. This small area of 7,000 inhabitants was the only place where a dialect of Occitan has received full official status. Then, on August 9, 2006, when the new statute came into force, Occitan became official throughout Catalonia.

Popular culture

Castellers are one of the main manifestations of the Catalonian popular culture. The activity consists in constructing human towers by competing colles castelleres (teams). This practice originated in the southern part of Catalonia during the 18th century.

The sardana is the most characteristic Catalonian popular dance; other groups also practice Ball de bastons, moixiganga or jota in the southern part. Musically the Havaneres are also characteristic in the marine localities of the Costa Brava, especially during the summer months when these songs are sung outdoors accompanied by a tasting of burned rum. As opposed to other parts of Spain, flamenco is not popularly performed, but rather the rumba is a more prevalent dance style.

In the greater celebrations other elements of the Catalonian popular culture are usually present: the parades of giants and correfocs of devils and firecrackers. Another traditional celebration in Catalonia is La Patum de Berga declared oral and immaterial patrimony of Humanity by UNESCO in November 2005.

In addition to the traditional local Catalonian culture, people can enjoy traditions from other parts of Spain as a result of sizable migration from other regions.

Some symbols of Catalonia

Catalonia has its own representative and distinctive symbols such as:

• The flag of Catalonia or Senyera (flag in Catalan), is a vexillological symbol based on the coat of arms of the Crown of Aragon, which consists of four red stripes on a golden background. It is an official symbol since the Statute of Catalonia of 1932.
• The National Day of Catalonia is on 11 September, and it is commonly called La Diada. It commemorates the 1714 Siege of Barcelona defeat during the War of the Spanish Succession.
• The national anthem of Catalonia is Els Segadors and was written in its present form by Emili Guanyavents in 1899. The song is official by law from the February 25 of 1993. It is based on the events of 1639 and 1640 when Catalans fought for independence against Philip IV in the so called Catalan Revolt.
• La Diada de Sant Jordi is widely celebrated in all the towns of Catalonia on 23 April. It is a day where in addition to the exchange of books and roses, Catalans will proudly display their senyeres as a show of national pride.

• One of the most famous international symbols of Catalonia is FC Barcelona. The area's footballing branch is supported with a passion by the 'cules'. Each season they engage in one of Spanish football's most famous rivalries, the El Clásico with La Liga powerhouse and long-time rivals Real Madrid.

Gallery of images

• 

  Sagrada Família, Barcelona

• 

  Girona's Cathedral

• 

  Archaeological Ensemble of Tárraco, Tarragona

• 

  La Seu Vella, Lleida

• Val d'Aran.jpg

  The Aran valley

• 

  Church of Sitges

• 

  Illes Medes, off L'Estartit beach

• 

  Tortosa

Torre Agbar in Barcelona

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

• The Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia)
• Xanascat National Network of Youth Hostels of Catalonia
• Statistical information from Idescat (Catalan Institute of Statistics)
• Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Institute of Catalan Studies)
• Lletra. Catalan Literature Online
• Lletra. espai virtual de literatura catalana
• Catalan Hyperencyclopaedia: Encyclopedia with information about Catalonia in English
• A guide to the natural history of Catalonia
• The Spirit of Catalonia. Digital edition of the 1946 book by Oxford Professor Dr. Josep Trueta, in English.
• Fundació d'Estudis Històrics de Catalunya
• Catalonian rumba - Rumba catalana - Music from Catalonia

	Comarques of Catalonia
Comarques of Autonomous Community of Catalonia
Alt Camp | Alt Empordà | Alt Penedès | Alt Urgell | Alta Ribagorça | Anoia | Bages | Baix Camp | Baix Ebre | Baix Empordà | Baix Llobregat | Baix Penedès | Barcelonès | Berguedà | Cerdanya | Conca de Barberà | Garraf | Garrigues | Garrotxa | Gironès | Maresme | Montsià | Noguera | Osona | Pallars Jussà | Pallars Sobirà | Pla de l'Estany | Pla d'Urgell | Priorat | Ribera d'Ebre | Ripollès | Segarra | Segrià | Selva | Solsonès | Tarragonès | Terra Alta | Urgell | Val d'Aran | Vallès Occidental | Vallès Oriental

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