Barcelona city

Population characteristics

Barcelona, second largest city in Spain and the country’s principal industrial center. Although local legends link the name Barcelona to Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, it can be more firmly traced to Barcino, the name the Romans gave to the original nucleus of the city. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, Spain's autonomous northeast region, bordering with France. Its location on the Mediterranean Sea, hemmed in by the deltas of the Besós and the Llobregat rivers and the Collserola Mountains, accounts for its temperate, humid climate. The mountains, which rise to more than 518 m (1,700 ft) within 13 km (8 mi) of the city center, form a dramatic backdrop. Barcelona is a major Mediterranean port and also a financial and publishing center of Spain.

Barcelona is the hub of a large and densely settled metropolitan area. Its downtown is divided into two zones. The center, the Ciutat Vella (Old City), faces the sea. Barcelona’s principal historical buildings are located here. They include the cathedral, known as La Seu, and numerous other churches and monasteries, many in Gothic style. Buildings of medieval origin include the former royal and viceregal palaces; the Capella de Santa Agata (Chapel of Saint Agatha); the Ajuntament (city hall), and the Palau de la Generalitat, the Catalan regional government building located on the Plaça de Sant Jaume (Saint James's Square). The Ramblas, a famous series of boulevards full of pedestrians and vendors, divide the city center in half. The Ramblas extend from the harbor to the Plaça de Catalunya (Plaza of Catalonia), which is considered the city’s focal point.

The Old City is nearly surrounded by the Eixample, a series of neighborhoods created by inland expansion after the old city walls were torn down beginning in 1854. The Eixample was laid out according to the Cerdà Plan, which was named after engineer Ildefons Cerdà, one of the first modern city planners.

An elegant and spacious residential area, the Eixample houses most of Barcelona's “modernist,” or art nouveau, architecture. Especially notable are the buildings of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. Gaudí’s most prominent building is the famous Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Família (Church of the Holy Family), which was begun in 1884 and is still unfinished. Outside the Eixample lies Barcelona's former industrial belt, where old factories and traditionally working-class housing are being converted to residential and other uses.

The people of Barcelona

According to the municipal census of 2001, Barcelona has 1,605,602 inhabitants. The province of Barcelona, which includes the city and its surrounding area, has a total population of 5,226,354, making it the second largest in Spain, after Madrid. The metropolitan area steadily grew from the 1950s through the 1980s; however, during the 1990s, the number of inhabitants dropped slightly. The city itself experienced this turnaround earlier. After decades of expansion, it began to lose residents in the early 1980s, due to a decline in both immigration and local birth rates. It is expected that further migrations from the center to the suburbs will continue.

The major ethnic division in Barcelona is that between native Catalans and immigrants from the rest of Spain. Catalans make up about two-thirds of the city’s population. Cultural difference between these groups is reflected above all in language use. Barcelona is a bilingual city. Most of its residents speak Catalan, the local language of Romance origin, as well as Castilian Spanish, which is spoken throughout the rest of the country. Catalan is habitually used at all social levels, and it is the preferred language of middle class residents. Castilian Spanish is the language of choice for most of the large urban working class, many of whom are recent migrants from elsewhere in Spain, especially the southern region of Andalucía. "Spain" © Emmanuel BUCHOT, Encarta, Wikipedia