Everything about Northern Catalonia totally explained
|
|
| The map at right shows the location of the département of the Pyrénées-Orientales, which roughly corresponds to the territory known as Northern Catalonia but also includes the district of Fenouillèdes ; the map at left shows Roussillon and Catalonia. |
Northern Catalonia (
Catalan:
Catalunya Nord) is a term which is sometimes used,
particularly in
Catalan writings, to refer to
the territory ceded to
France by
Spain
in
1659. The equivalent term in
French,
Catalogne du Nord, is only rarely used: the term
Roussillon (in reference to the
pre-
Revolutionary
province) is
usually preferred. Both
Northern Catalonia and
Roussillon
correspond approximately to the modern
French
département of the
Pyrénées-Orientales.
Geography
Northern Catalonia forms a triangle between the
Pyrenees to the south, the
Corbières to the north-west and the
Mediterranean Sea to the east. The Roussillon plain in the east, by far the most populated area, is formed by the
flood plains of the
Tech,
Têt and
Agly rivers . The districts of
Vallespir and
Conflent cover the upper valleys of the Tech and the Têt respectively. The
massif of the
Canigou, 2785 m, dominates much of the territory.
The climate is of the
Mediterranean type, with hot, dry summers and winters which are relatively mild, at least on the Roussillon plain where snow is rare.
The city of
Perpignan accounts for over a quarter of the population, over one-third of its urban area is taken into account, and is the only major administrative and service centre. Major road and rail links run north–south through Northern Catalonia between France and Spain, while a railway line also links Perpignan to
Latour-de-Carol (Catalan:
La Tor de Querol) via
Prades (Catalan:
Prada de Conflent or Prada).
Cerdagne
Haute-Cerdagne is geographically distinct from the rest of Northern Catalonia, lying to the south of the Pyrenean
watershed in the upper valley of the
Segre. It is a mountainous and sparsely-populated district, even taking into account the town of
Llívia (
pop. 1252
(2005)) which forms an
enclave resting under Spanish sovereignty.
The district lies on the most direct route between
Toulouse (
Occitan:
Tolosa de Lengadoc) and
Barcelona (via
Foix and
Ripoll), and a railway line still links the two cities via
Latour-de-Carol .
Administrative history
Eighth to twelfth centuries
Northern Catalonia formed part of the
Spanish Marches, established by
Charlemagne as a buffer territory against
the
Moorish forces. As such, it was divided into feudal counties,
Rosselló,
Vallespir,
Conflent north of the Pyrenees and
Cerdanya to the south. By the end of the
ninth century, these counties had gained
de facto independence from the
Carolingian kings and operated
as princely states (whose rulers nevertheless retained the title of count).
As the seigneury of the counties became hereditary, the total number of Catalan counts fell steadily. One individual often
had the charge of several counties, but these were not always transmitted on the basis of
primogeniture. Hence Count
Miró II the Young, third son of
Wilfred I the Hairy, inherited the counties of Cerdanya and Conflent from his father in
897, and the counties of
Besalú and Vallespir from his elder brother
Sunyer I when the latter became
Count of Barcelona in
911.
The
Counts of Rosselló, in alliance with their cousins the
Counts of Empuriés,
tried to resist this dilution of their power. However the
Counts of Barcelona steadily gain suzerainty over the
other Catalan counts, a process which was virtually complete by the
twelfth century. The last Count of Rosselló,
Girard II, left his title to the
Crown of Aragon on his death in
1172 to prevent the territory passing to his illegitimate half-brothers.
Under the Crown of Aragon
Royal administration in Catalonia under the
Crown of Aragon was organised on the basis of
vegueries,
under the charge of a
veguer appointed by the King of Aragon as Count of Barcelona. In Northern Catalonia, the
vegueries
followed closely the boundaries of the old counties. The district of
Capcir was a
sotsvegueria, based around
the castle of
Puigbalador (French:
Puyvalador) but subordinate to the
vegueria of
Conflent.
The
Treaty of Corbeil of
1258 confirmed the frontier between France and Aragon as the
Cerbères,
leaving the
Occitan district of
Fenolheda to France.
On the death of King
James I the Conqueror in
1276, Northern Catalonia was combined with the
Balearic Isles to
form a new
Kingdom of Mallorca, which passed to
James II while the rest of the
territory of the Crown of Aragon passed to his brother
Peter III. This division satisfied
neither branch of the family, and the Kingdom of Mallorca was retaken militarily by the Crown of Aragon in
1344.
After the Treaty of the Pyrenees
The
Treaty of the Pyrenees of
1659 ceded Northern Catalonia to France, where it became the
province of
Roussillon. The French provinces were abolished at the
Revolution (Law of
1789-12-22), and Roussillon was joined with the district of
Fenouillèdes
(Occitan:
Fenolheda) to form the
département of the
Pyrénées-Orientales, with
Perpignan (
Perpinyà) as its administrative centre.
Present day
The
département of the Pyrénées-Orientales is divided into the
arrondissements of
Céret (Catalan:
Ceret),
Perpignan (
Perpinyà) and
Prades (
Prada), which are further divided into
cantons and
communes. Perpignan and sixteen surrounding communes are also associated in the
Communauté d'agglomération Têt Méditerranée, created in 2001. Enclaved in the southwest of the
département there's the Spanish (
Catalonia) exclave of
Llívia.
As is common, the present-day
arrondissements don't correspond to pre-
Revolutionary boundaries. The
arrondissement of Prades (
Prada) covers the whole of
Haute-Cerdagne (
Alta Cerdanya) and
Conflent (including
Capcir), as well as about a third of
Fenolheda (not part of the province of Roussillon).
The
arrondissement of Céret covers the whole of
Vallespir but also the
Côte Vermeille (
Costa Vermella), which was historically under the control of the counts and
veguers of Rosselló at
Perpinyà (Perpignan).
Catalan writers sometimes speak of the
"comarques of Northern Catalonia".
Unlike the
autonomous community of Catalonia, these
comarques have no administrative significance, although
they usually correspond to a certain historical and geographical unity. A commonly used division is that of
Joan Becat in his
1977 work
Atles de Catalunya Nord, which follows closely the boundaries of the former
vegueries except insofar as
it promotes the former
sotsvegueria of Capcir (177
km²,
pop. 1532
(1990)) to a full
comarca.
Languages
French is the
official language in these municipalities.
Catalan, in its
Northern Catalan variety, is estimated to be spoken by a quarter of the population, but understood by a higher percentage.
Its public usage was forbidden by means of a
Louis XIV royal decree in
1700 prohibitting the usage of Catalan language in official documents. Then in the
1950s, after centuries of being forbidden in education, Catalan language could be taken 1 hour per week in secondary school. In the
1970s, the
Arrels Association and
la Bressola network of private schools started to offer complete bilingual French/Catalan classes from nursery up to secondary education.
On
December 10,
2007, the
General Council of Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognized Catalan as one of the languages of the departement, along French and
Occitan language (in Fenouillèdes), with the goal to further promote it in public life and education.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Northern Catalonia'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://northern_catalonia.totallyexplained.com">Northern Catalonia Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
