Catalonia

A Mediterranean nation with its own language and law that has spent three centuries inside a state it did not choose. Catalan is a Romance language closer to Occitan than to Castilian, and Catalonia's medieval institutions were correspondingly distinct: the Corts constrained the count-kings, the Generalitat administered between sessions, and the Consolat de Mar codified maritime law that was copied around the Mediterranean. As the partner in the Crown of Aragon it governed an empire reaching to Sicily, Sardinia and briefly Athens. Backing the losing side in the War of the Spanish Succession cost it everything: Barcelona fell on 11 September 1714, and Philip V's Nueva Planta decrees abolished the Catalan institutions and imposed Castilian administration - which is why the Catalan national day commemorates a defeat. Industrialisation in the nineteenth century made the region Spain's manufacturing centre and revived the language through the Renaixenca. Franco banned Catalan in public life after 1939. Autonomy returned in 1979, and an independence referendum held in 2017 was ruled unconstitutional, with organisers imprisoned and later pardoned. Barcelona is the second city of Spain. Gaudi's buildings are World Heritage sites. The region has about eight million people and Catalan has around nine million speakers counting Valencia and the Balearics. Andorra is the only state where it is the sole official language. The Sagrada Familia has been under construction since 1882. Human tower building, the castells, is recognised by Unesco. FC Barcelona describes itself as more than a club for reasons that are political. Catalonia generates around a fifth of Spanish economic output.

• Existed: 1137 CE – present
• Type: Entity