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History of Barcelona and Catalunya
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Catalunya is more than a part of Spain: the Catalan people have a deeply felt individual identity, rooted in a rich and - at times - glorious past. Perhaps its most conspicuous manifestation these days is in the resurgence of the language, which increasingly takes precedence over Castilian Spanish on street names and signs, and has staged a dramatic comeback after being banned from public use during the Franco dictatorship. However, linguistics is only one element in Catalan regionalism.
Catalan cultural identity can be traced back as far as the ninth century. From the quilt of independent counties of the eastern Pyrenees, a powerful dynastic entity, dominated by Barcelona, and commonly known as the Crown of AragA?n, developed over the next six hundred years. Its merger with Castile-Leon in the late 1400s, led to eventual inclusion in the new Spanish Empire of the sixteenth century - and marked the decline of Catalan independence and its eventual subjugation to Madrid. It has rarely been a willing subject, which goes some way to explaining how ingrained are the Catalan notions of social and cultural divorce from the rest of the country Other useful information
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Spain,
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