Seventeen communities and two cities, with their own parliaments, police forces, languages and sometimes taxes. Spain is one of the most decentralised countries in Europe, without calling itself federal.
This page tells how Spain got here. It runs from the abolition of the fueros in 1707 to the funding reform, which fell with the dissolution of October 2026. Each chapter is also seen from Barcelona, the spur of the whole system; the button below keeps only that story.
The reform of regional funding fell with the dissolution of the Cortes on 5 October. The new model was negotiated with ERC and adopted in September by the Council for Fiscal and Financial Policy. The Congress had not voted on it. The next government, formed after the elections of 29 November, will have to start again from scratch.
Landmarks · the timeline to scale
In the early 18th century, the Nueva Planta decrees abolish the institutions of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca and Catalonia. Only Navarre and the Basque provinces keep their fueros, until the Carlist Wars. In the 19th century, the liberal state divides the country into provinces on the model of the French départements.
The First Republic wanted a federal state of seventeen states, a number that resembles the current map. The resemblance is misleading: the borders were not the same. And the cantonalist episode of 1873 long discredited the word “federal” in Spain.
The fall of the city on 11 September 1714 ends the medieval Corts and Generalitat. The Diada commemorates this defeat. In 1931, Francesc Macià proclaims the Catalan Republic from the balcony of the Generalitat, then accepts autonomy within the Spanish Republic.
In October 1934, Lluís Companys proclaims the “Catalan State”; autonomy is suspended until 1936, then abolished by Franco in 1939.
To see: El Born CCM, Fossar de les Moreres, Monument a Rafael Casanova.
Article 2 proclaims “the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation”. In the same sentence, it guarantees the autonomy “of the nationalities and regions”, without naming them. The framers open three paths rather than a map. This is the “dispositive principle”: each territory decides whether it wants autonomy.
Art. 151 · 2nd transitional provision
Full powers from the outset. In practice reserved for Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, which had approved a statute by plebiscite under the Republic. Andalusia wins it by referendum in 1980.
Art. 143
Limited powers for at least five years. Twelve communities take this route, Madrid through a variant (Art. 144).
1st additional provision
The Constitution “protects and respects” the fueros. Navarre and the Basque Country raise their own taxes and pay a contribution to the state: a case with no equivalent in Europe.
The word “nationalities” was one of the most disputed in the Constituent Assembly. For some, it recognised nations without a state; for others, it remained a cultural term with no political weight. The text did not decide, and the debate resurfaced with the Catalan statute of 2006.
Even before the Constitution, Madrid restores the Generalitat in September 1977 and lets its president in exile, Josep Tarradellas, return. This “pre-autonomy” is negotiated directly with Adolfo Suárez.
Two of the seven fathers of the Constitution are Catalan: Miquel Roca and Jordi Solé Tura.
To see: Palau de la Generalitat.
Between 1979 and 1983, seventeen statutes are passed. The “historic nationalities” go first, then Andalusia forces the door. The government and the PSOE then decide to extend autonomy to the whole territory, to avoid a two-speed country.
Café para todos is judged in two ways. For its defenders, it avoided second-class regions and stabilised the state. For Catalan and Basque nationalists, it was designed to dilute their distinctiveness in a uniform whole.
The Statute of Sau is approved by referendum in October 1979. At the first elections to the Parliament, in March 1980, Jordi Pujol wins; he will govern for twenty-three years.
The language normalisation law of 1983 makes Catalan the language of schools and the administration.
To see: Parlament de Catalunya.
The slow-track communities catch up with the others. The 1992 agreements between the PSOE and the PP broaden their powers; health and education are devolved to all of them before 2002. Funding moves from a system of grants to a growing share of state taxes.
This period is often described as the golden age of the State of the Autonomies. Yet it rests on a fragile mechanism. Powers grow according to the needs of parliamentary majorities in the Congress, where Catalan and Basque votes are decisive.
Pujol negotiates with the governments of Felipe González and then José María Aznar. His support in the Congress is traded for transfers: from 1994, the Mossos d’Esquadra gradually replace the national police and the Guardia Civil.
The government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero opens the reform of the statutes. Eight communities rewrite theirs. The plan of lehendakari Ibarretxe, which proposed a statute of free association for the Basque Country, is rejected by the Congress in 2005.
The Andalusian statute of 2007 uses wording very close to the Catalan one without being challenged. For some, the 2010 ruling therefore targeted Catalonia more than the text. For others, the Catalan statute went further, notably on language, justice and the “nation”.
The 2006 statute defines Catalonia as a “nation” in its preamble. It is approved by the Catalan Parliament, pared down by the Cortes, then ratified by referendum. On an appeal by the Partido Popular, the Constitutional Court strips the word “nation” of legal force.
On 10 July 2010, a huge demonstration fills Barcelona under the slogan “Som una nació. Nosaltres decidim”.
The financial crisis pushes the communities to the brink of bankruptcy. In 2012 the state creates the Regional Liquidity Fund (FLA), which lends to them in exchange for budgetary oversight. The 2011 constitutional reform enshrines the golden rule on budgets. Territorial tensions peak in Catalonia.
Article 155, copied from the German Basic Law, had never been used. For its supporters, its use showed that the Constitution can defend itself. For its critics, it revealed the absence of any political mechanism to settle a territorial conflict.
From the Diada of 2012, every 11 September brings together hundreds of thousands of pro-independence supporters. The refusal of the fiscal pact tips Convergència towards independence.
On 1 October 2017, the banned referendum goes ahead despite police charges. On the 27th, the Parliament votes the declaration of independence; the same day, the Senate authorises Article 155.
To see: Parlament de Catalunya.
Since 2018, Pedro Sánchez’s governments have depended on Catalan and Basque parties. Negotiation covers two subjects: funding and political recognition. The 2024 amnesty and the 2026 funding reform are its two major pieces; the second has just fallen.
Is Spain a federal state that does not say its name? Its regions run health, education and a large share of public spending. Yet it lacks two pillars of federalism. A Senate that truly represents the territories, and a role for the regions in revising the Constitution.
Since August 2024, the Socialist Salvador Illa has led the Generalitat with ERC’s support, in exchange for “singular funding”. Junts, which demands an economic concierto on the Basque model, has tabled an amendment rejecting the reform.
Catalan immersion in schools is still being challenged in the courts.
The fueros of Biscay, Gipuzkoa and Álava survive until 1876, after the last Carlist War. The Economic Concierto of 1878 replaces them: the provinces raise taxes and pay a cupo to the state. Franco withdraws it from Biscay and Gipuzkoa in 1937. ETA, which killed more than 850 people, dissolves in 2018.
A county, then the heart of the Crown of Aragon, with its institutions abolished in 1716. The first to regain autonomy, in 1932 and in 1977. The only community where Occitan, in the Aranese form of the Val d’Aran, is official.
A medieval kingdom absorbed into Castile, and a land of emigration to the Americas. Galician and Portuguese grew from a single language. Its 1936 statute opens the fast track, but its political culture remains more moderate than in Catalonia or the Basque Country.
The heart of al-Andalus, then a land of great estates and day labourers. The referendum of 28 February 1980 carries everywhere except Almería, and a law is needed to unblock the situation. Andalusia thus broke the monopoly of the “historic nationalities”.
Cradle of the first Christian kingdom after Covadonga. The heir to the throne has borne the title of Prince or Princess of Asturias since 1388. A mining region, centre of the workers’ uprising of 1934.
The former province of Santander, Old Castile’s outlet to the sea. It refuses to join the future Castilla y León and chooses autonomy on its own.
The former province of Logroño takes the name of its wine region. The Glosses of San Millán, among the oldest texts in Castilian Romance and in Basque, were written here.
The former Kingdom of Murcia, conquered by Castile with Aragon’s help in the 13th century. Like Cantabria and La Rioja, a single province becomes a community.
A kingdom of the Crown of Aragon from 1238, its Furs are abolished in 1707. An organic law transfers the fast-track powers to it as early as 1982. The “Battle of Valencia” long pitted supporters and opponents of the unity of Valencian and Catalan against each other.
The kingdom that gave its name to the Crown. Its fueros fall in 1707. The statute restored the Justicia de Aragón, a medieval magistrate charged with defending liberties, now the regional ombudsman.
A creation of 1982: New Castile without Madrid, plus Albacete, previously attached to the Murcia region. The land of Don Quixote, with no political identity before autonomy.
Conquered by Castile between 1402 and 1496, a testing ground for the colonisation of the Americas. A distinct economic and fiscal regime replaces VAT with the IGIC. The capital alternates between the two main islands, historic rivals.
An independent kingdom until its conquest by Ferdinand the Catholic in 1512. The “paccionada” law of 1841 negotiates the end of the kingdom in exchange for fiscal autonomy. It has no statute but an Amejoramiento del Fuero, negotiated without a referendum. It could join the Basque Country by referendum.
Birthplace of Cortés and Pizarro, and long the poorest region in Spain. Mérida, the Roman Emerita Augusta, is chosen as capital over Badajoz or Cáceres.
Conquered by James I in 1229, they form an independent Kingdom of Majorca until 1349. Each island’s island council keeps powers of its own.
Madrid did not want autonomy and had no regional past. Parliament created it in the name of “the national interest”, removing it from New Castile. It is now the country’s largest regional economy.
The largest region in Western Europe by area merges two medieval kingdoms. The statute names no capital. Some Leonese still demand separate autonomy.
Portuguese from 1415, it chooses Spain when the two crowns separate in 1640, which Lisbon recognises in 1668. Morocco claims it.
Spanish since 1497. Like Ceuta, it has an assembly without legislative power and a land border with Morocco, protected by a fence.
Eight places, ranked from the most telling to the most discreet. Coordinates are approximate; opening times marked “to be checked” had not been confirmed on 4 November 2026.
Seat of the Generalitat since the 15th century. Macià proclaimed the Catalan Republic here in 1931; Tarradellas returned here in 1977.
In the former arsenal of the fortress built by Philip V to hold the city after 1714. The 2006 statute and the 2017 declaration were voted here.
The streets razed after 1714, beneath the old market. The starting point of the Catalan narrative of lost institutions.
From the Mancomunitat to the 1979 statute, the Catalan institutional story told room by room.
The cemetery of the defenders of 1714, against the flank of Santa Maria del Mar. People gather here every 10 September in the evening.
The conseller en cap who defended the city in 1714. Every 11 September, institutions, parties and associations lay their wreaths here, in a closely watched order.
An inverted staircase by Josep Maria Subirachs (1991) for the president of 1931. Many passers-by sit on it without knowing what it represents.
The viceroy’s palace in the 16th century, home to the archives of the Crown of Aragon: the written memory of the institutions abolished in 1714.