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20-638: Baix Llobregat ( Catalan pronunciation: [ˈbaʒ ʎuβɾəˈɣat] ) is a comarca (county) on the coast of Catalonia , Spain . It is located in the Barcelona region and its capital is Sant Feliu de Llobregat . It has long been proposed to split the northern part of Baix Llobregat into a separate comarca. The Catalan government's "Report on the revision of Catalonia's territorial organisation model" (the Roca Report  [ ca ] ), published in 2000, recommends many changes to comarcas, including

40-599: A comarca but a "unique territorial entity" with additional powers. Its current status was formalised in February 2015. Revisions to the comarques took place in 1988 (creation of Pla d'Estany, Pla d'Urgell, and Alta Ribagorça), 1990 (various adjustments), and May 2015 (creation of Moianès). The Catalan government 's "Report on the revision of Catalonia's territorial organisation model" (the Roca Report  [ ca ] ), published in 2000, recommends many more changes to comarques, which have not yet been adopted except for

60-671: A majority of municipalities of the Lluçanès region of Osona voted to join a proposed new comarca of that name. It was finally added to the list of Comarques on the 3rd of May 2023. There are six comarques which are often referred to as the historical comarques of Catalonia , because their present-day territory was a part of the former Principality of Catalonia , but nowadays they lie in Northern Catalonia , administered by France . Provinces of Spain A province in Spain

80-449: A particular comarca in the same way that people in other parts of the world might identify with a particular region. In some cases, comarques consist of rural areas and many small villages centring on an important town, where the people of the region traditionally go to shop or to sell their goods. This is the case of comarques such as the Pla de l'Estany , centred on the town of Banyoles , or

100-608: A representative county council (Catalan: consell comarcal ), except for Barcelonès , which abolished it in 2019, and Aran, which instead has the Conselh Generau d'Aran . Comarques form the second-level administrative division within Catalonia, being a subdivision of vegueries (or provinces at state level). Although today the comarques are officially defined under a Catalan parliamentary act, for centuries they had existed unofficially, with citizens identifying with

120-492: A result, some revisions to the official division have been made, such as the additions of Moianès and Lluçanès to the map, in 2015 and 2023 respectively. Comarques exist as a local government area, and have a representative county council . They are often known as counties in the English language, but this can be confused with the counties that were ruled by counts . Borders of comarques generally do not cross those of

140-510: Is a territorial division defined as a collection of municipalities . The current provinces of Spain correspond by and large to the provinces created under the purview of the 1833 territorial re-organization of Spain , with a similar predecessor from 1822 (during the Trienio Liberal ) and an earlier precedent in the 1810 Napoleonic division of Spain into 84 prefectures. There are many other groupings of municipalities that comprise

160-474: Is divided between these communities. The importance of the provinces has declined since the adoption of the system of autonomous communities in the period of the Spanish transition to democracy . They nevertheless remain electoral districts for national elections. Provinces are also used as geographical references: for instance in postal addresses and telephone codes. National media will also frequently use

180-574: Is given, together with an indication of the autonomous community to which it belongs and a link to a list of municipalities in the province. The names of the provinces and their capitals are ordered alphabetically according to the form in which they appear in the main Misplaced Pages articles describing them. Unless otherwise indicated, their Spanish-language names are the same; locally valid names in Spain's other co-official languages ( Basque , Catalan , which

200-549: The Province of Canary Islands into the provinces of Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife . Historically, the provinces served mainly as transmission belts for policies enacted in Madrid, as Spain was a highly centralised state for most of its modern history. The provinces were the "building-blocks" from which the autonomous communities were created following processed defined in the 1978 Constitution . Consequently, no province

220-592: The Provincial council , but their existence is controversial . As the province is defined as a "local entity" in the Constitution, the Provincial council belongs to the sphere of local government . The layout of Spain's provinces closely follows the pattern of the territorial division of the country carried out in 1833 . The only major change of provincial borders since that time has been the division of

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240-576: The Ripollès , centred on the town of Ripoll . In other cases, comarques are larger areas with many important population centres that have traditionally been considered part of the same region, as in the case of the Empordà or Vallès . The current official division of Catalonia into comarques originates in an order of the autonomous Catalan government under the Spanish Republic in 1936. It

260-470: The local government of Spain . The boundaries of provinces can only be altered by the Spanish Parliament, giving rise to the common view that the 17 autonomous communities are subdivided into 50 provinces . In reality the system is not hierarchical but defined according to jurisdiction ( Spanish : competencias ). The body charged with government and administration of a province is

280-484: The 2015 creation of Moianès. The other proposed new comarques are: Vall de Camprodon  [ ca ] (capital at Camprodon ), Selva Marítima  [ ca ] (capital at Blanes ), Alta Segarra  [ ca ] (capital at Calaf ), Segre Mitjà  [ ca ] (capital at Ponts ), and Baix Llobregat Nord  [ ca ] (capital at Martorell ). In a non-binding referendum in July 2015,

300-834: The UN's Second Administrative Level Boundaries data set project (SALB). Most of the provinces are named after their capital town —with the exceptions of Álava , Asturias , Biscay , Cantabria , Gipuzkoa , the Balearic Islands , La Rioja , and Navarre , and a name reduction in Las Palmas and Castellón — and biggest town —with the exception of Pontevedra ( Vigo ), Asturias ( Gijón ) and Cádiz ( Jerez ). Only two capitals of autonomous communities— Mérida in Extremadura and Santiago de Compostela in Galicia —are not also

320-477: The capitals of provinces. Seven of the autonomous communities comprise no more than one province each: Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, La Rioja, Madrid , Murcia , and Navarre. These are sometimes referred to as "uniprovincial" communities. Ceuta , Melilla , and the plazas de soberanía are not part of any province. The table below lists the provinces of Spain. For each, the capital city

340-511: The creation of Baix Llobregat Nord  [ ca ] , with its capital at Martorell , taking in several more municipalities from Alt Penedès , Anoia , Bages , and Vallès Occidental . Recent campaigns have referred to the proposed new comarca as "Montserratí", due to the landmark Montserrat mountain marking part of its eastern border. 41°25′50″N 1°58′00″E  /  41.43056°N 1.96667°E  / 41.43056; 1.96667 Comarques of Catalonia Each comarca has

360-457: The province to disambiguate small towns or communities whose names occur frequently throughout Spain. A small town would normally be identified as being in, say, Valladolid province rather than the autonomous community of Castile and León . In addition, organisations outside Spain use provinces for statistical analysis and policy making and in comparison with other countries including NUTS , OECD , FIPS , CIA World Factbook , ISO 3166-2 and

380-512: The state-level provinces ( Barcelona , Girona , Lleida , Tarragona ), since the provinces are defined by the Spanish government, while comarques are defined by the Catalan government - notably in the case of Cerdanya which is split into two between the provinces of Lleida and Girona (most other cases involve only one or two municipalities). Aran , which is included here, is officially not

400-491: Was superseded after the 1939 victory of Francisco Franco 's forces in the Spanish Civil War , but restored in 1987 by the re-established Generalitat of Catalonia . Since the definition of comarques is sometimes ambiguous, many new proposals have been made since the comarques were first officially designated as attempts to modify the official distribution with what some regions consider to be a traditional comarca. As

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