History of the Area

Barcelona - A Colourful Past

Catalonia, Catalogne or Catalunya has long been fought over by warring factions wanting to harvest the benefits that could be found in this strategic area.Inhabited by early Greeks whose artefacts have been found and are now on show in the many museums in the area, followed by  Romans who made Tarragona  their capital for the Iberian Peninsula.  After the fall of Rome it was the Visigoths.

Briefly occupied by the Moors - a lasting influence here - many town names have a Moorish origin, but following the defeat of the Muslim troops in Tours, France the Visigoths regained autonomy attaching themselves to the Frankish kingdom from which led centuries of border changes, wars amongst the Crowns of Spain and France bringing with it changes in the ruling parties.

Catalunya in the Middle Ages was a powerful economy but this was all to change following the marriage of Isabella of castille and Ferdinand 11 of Aragon when power moved from Catalunya to Castile. For some time, Catalonia retained its own laws, but these gradually eroded (albeit with occasional periods of regeneration). Over the next few centuries, Catalonia was generally on the losing side of a series of wars that led steadily to more centralization of power in Spain.

The most significant conflict was the War of the Spanish Succession, which began when Carlos 11 died without a successor in 1700. Catalonia supported the claim of a member of the Austrian branch of the Hapsburg dynasty, while the rest of Spain generally supported the French Bourbon claimant, Felipe V.  Following the success of Felipe V and the final surrender of Catalan troops in 1714 a Royal decree banned all the main Catalan political institutions and imposed military-based rule over the region.

In the latter half of the 19th century Catalonia became the powerhouse of Spain - a title that remains to this day. Catalan autonomy and culture were crushed to an unprecedented degree in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) which saw General Francisco Franco assume power. Even public use of the Catalan language was banned.

Following the death of General Franco in 1975 Catalonia recovered cultural autonomy and some political autonomy. Today, Catalonia is almost universally recognized as one of the most economically dynamic regions of Spain and the Catalan capital Barcelona centre of this thriving dynamic economy.