Nationalities and regions of Spain

Spain is a diverse country integrated by contrasting entities with varying economic and social structures, languages, and historical, political and cultural traditions. The Spanish constitution responds ambiguously to the claims of historic nationalities (such as the right of self-government) while proclaiming a common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards.

The terms nationalities and historical nationalities, though never officially defined, refer to territories whose inhabitants have a strong historically constituted identity; or, more specifically, certain autonomous communities whose statute of autonomy—their basic institutional legislation—recognizes their historical and cultural identity.

In Spanish jurisprudence, the term nationality appears for the first time in the current constitution, approved in 1978 after much debate in the Spanish Parliament. Although it was explicitly understood that the term referred to Galicia, the Basque Country, and Catalonia, the constitution does not specify any communities by name. Between the strong centralist position inherited from Franco's regime and the nationalist position of the Galicians, Basques, and Catalans, a consensus developed around this term. It was applied in the respective statutes of autonomy once all nationalities and regions acceded to self-government or autonomy, and were constituted as autonomous communities.

Several of the writers of the current Spanish Constitution have said that the concept of nationality is synonymous with nation. However, the Spanish Constitutional Court has explicitly ruled against this interpretation.

Currently, the term "nationality" is used in reference to Aragon, Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands and Andalusia. The rest of the autonomous communities (Castile-La Mancha, Murcia, La Rioja, Extremadura) are defined as historical regions of Spain. Asturias, Cantabria, and Castile and León are referred to as "historical communities". Navarre is defined as a chartered community in the re-institution of its medieval charters, and the Community of Madrid is defined as neither a nationality nor a region, but a community created in the nation's interest as the seat of the nation's capital. Catalonia was originally defined as a "nation" in the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006. However, the Constitutional Court of Spain declared that unconstitutional. The court considered that the references made, in the preamble of the statute, to Catalonia to a nation "lack legal effectiveness".

The formation of Spain can be viewed as an alliance and progressive union of several peninsular kingdoms, and nationalist or regionalist tradition in Spain has historical roots in such beginnings. No serious attempt was made to centralise the administration until the reforms of the eighteenth century, to become a nation state.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, though, the Spanish government had become strongly centralised, as was the case in certain other European nations. The State did not recognise the nation's regional diversity. Later during this same century, Catalonia and the Basque Country became rapidly industrialised and were areas of swift progress in establishing commercial capitalism. These changes occurred much more slowly in the rest of the country, which remained largely agricultural. Nationalistic sentiments began to grow in the more industrialized areas. Some writers of the time expressed their concepts of a Catalan or Basque fatherland, or even nationhood. These two nationalist movements had much in common, in that both arose in areas that enjoyed higher levels of prosperity and literacy, were the only areas in the country to develop modern industry, and each possessed a distinct and independent linguistic tradition. Activists worked to revive use of both the Catalan and the Basque languages, including publication of literature in these languages. A similar revival began of the Galician language. Scholars began to explore the histories of these regions, to tell their own founding stories: Catalonia rediscovered her prowess as a Mediterranean Medieval empire within the Crown of Aragon, and the Basque Country focused on the mystery of its origins.

Under medieval and early modern charters, several parts of Spain, including the Principality of Catalonia and the Basque provinces, had exercised a considerable level of independence, even in the period of Habsburg Spain; however, later Bourbon Spain such independence was lost and the Basque Country and Navarre exercised only fiscal autonomy. The larger economic development that occurred in these historically delimited ethnic communities enhanced the regions' own identities.