BARCELONA, formerly capital of Catalonia, and since capital of the province of Barcelona in eastern Spain ; the seat of a bishop. Pop. (1930) 1,005,565. The city and suburbs occu pies an amphitheatre between the flood-plains of the rivers Llobregat and Besos, facing south-east to the Mediterranean and backed by a section of the Catalonian coastal chain which forms a pyramid culminating in the Tibidabo (532 metres). In easy communication by the valleys of the above rivers both with the structural depressions of the Panades and the Valles, lying behind the coastal chain, and with the lowlands to the north of the inner mountain chain, Barcelona lies both on the coastal road and at the end of its connections with interior communications. The fortified hill of Montjuich (175 metres) rising from the sea to the south-west, separates the city from the mouth of the Llobregat. The entire amphitheatre is now urbanized. Country houses of wealthy merchants reach out to the slopes of the bound ing hills from villages and townships which formerly lay in a ring round the city and have now been absorbed ; the new quarter, Ensanche, with uniformly designed blocks of houses laid out in a rectangular scheme, welds these suburbs to the old city on the sea-front, which is now defined by the Rondos, occupying the ground where the fortifications once stood, and which is divided by the Ramblas into the older Ciudad, on the east, and the more modern Arrabal, on the west. The special character of Barcelona lies in the association within a clearly delimited area of gardens of luxuriant vegetation, factories and other apparatus of indus trial life, and the merchant shipping of a busy port.
The Ciudad is the old Barcelona, built round the Roman Bar cino which stood on the Monte Taber, a narrow tongue of rather higher ground near the present cathedral. In the interior of the Ciudad are the architectural treasures left to Barcelona—the Plaza del Rey; the Gothic cathedral, with the tomb of Santa Eulalia, the patron saint of the city, and with magnificent 15th century stained glass windows; the church of Santa Maria del Mar and many public buildings. The fine Plaza de Palacio, the centre of the city's maritime activities, and the Plaza Real, in the centre of the business area, lie inside, but near the edge of, the Ciudad; the Plaza de Catalonia, just outside and at the end of the Ramblas, is the chief centre of Greater Barcelona. The narrow, irregular streets of the old quarter were broken through in the 19th century by the Calle de Fernando VII. and its con tinuations, and more recently by the Via Layetana and other ave nues; it seems probable that the mediaeval ground-plan, so long conserved, will soon be unrecognizable. The stream-bed which formerly bounded the Ciudad on the west was covered over in the first half of the 19th century and the interior wall dividing the Ciudad and the Arrabal gradually demolished; thus the Ram blas came into existence, now the chief artery of social life.
The Arrabal, although it has lain within the city bounds since 1350, was not built over until the second half of the 18th century.
The Ciudad and Arrabal were formerly surrounded by a strong line of ramparts, and dominated by a citadel on the north-east, erected in 1715 by Philip V.; this restriction on development was removed by the destruction of the ramparts, authorized in and completed by 1868. In the later year, too, the citadel was destroyed during a revolt ; the ground which it formerly covered was laid out in gardens on the occasion of the exhibition of 1888, and has now become the City park. To the east, on the tongue of land that helps to form the port, the suburb of Barceloneta was laid out between 1752 and 1775 in rectangular blocks of uniform, two-storied houses by order of the Marques de la Mina, the commandant of the port. From 1864 onwards the rapidly increas ing population of Barcelona poured out to the north-west, into the Ensanche, planned by the government engineer Cerda. This quarter suffers, however, from the lack of organic connection both with the old town and with possible lay-outs for the outer areas. Beyond the Ensanche, the suburbs of Sans, Las Corts, San Gervasio, San Martin de Provensals and San Andres de Palomar were added to the city between 1897 and 1904, the suburb of I-Iorta, lying behind the projecting Montana Pelada, before 1908, and that of San Vincente de Sarria in 1922. The Pedralbes pal ace, built by public subscription as a royal residence on the lower slopes of the hills near Sarria, was presented to King Alfonso on the occasion of his visit to Barcelona in 1924. Communications within the municipal area were improved by the opening in Dec. 1924 of a tube railway, and in Dec. 1925 of a line of the Metro politan railway, linking up the suburbs of Gracia and San Ger vasio, A series of improvements now being carried out, which include the construction of a new terminal station of the M.Z.A. railway, intended to be one of the largest railway stations in Europe, are related to the long-postponed universal exhibition for which the buildings are now being erected on the lower slopes of Montjuich. Much of the hillside has now been converted into a fine park, with terraced gardens, an open air theatre and a stadium.
The educational institutions of Barcelona have from an early period been numerous and important. The university (Universi dad Literaria), which was originally founded in 143o by the magistracy of the city, and received a bull of confirmation from Pope Nicholas V. in 1450, possessed at that time four faculties and 31 chairs all endowed by the corporation. It was suppressed in 1714, but restored in 1841, and now occupies an extensive build ing in the new town; 3,575 students, including 403 women, attended the various faculties in 1923-24. There are, besides, an academy of natural sciences, a college of medicine and surgery— confirmed by a bull of Benedict XIII. in 1400—and an academy of fine arts. The principal charitable foundations are the Casa de Caridad or house of charity, the general hospital, dating from 1401, and the foundling hospital. The principal civic and com mercial buildings are the Casa Consistorial, a fine Gothic hall (1369-78), the Lonja or exchange (1383), and the Aduana or custom-house (1792). At the seaward end of the Ramblas are the picturesque Atarazanas or arsenals, finished about 1243, and now marked for total destruction. Remains of the former royal state of Barcelona are found in the Palacio Real of the kings of Aragon and the Palacio de la Reina.
port of Barcelona, at first little more than an open roadstead, was improved in 1474 by the construction of a mole, the Moll de Santa Creu, but the harbour proper dates from the 57th century. It includes now an outer and inner harbour; the outer harbour is protected by two breakwaters of which the eastern is at present being greatly extended, and is entered by a channel 33ft. deep; the inner harbour can usually provide accom modation alongside the quays for vessels drawing 24 to 2 7 f t. The floating dock will shortly be able to admit vessels of 1 o,000 tons. From 1873 the work of extension and improvement was carried on systematically, with the addition of new quays, greater storage room, and better means for handling cargo. After 3o years of steady development, further plans were approved in 1903. At this time the port included an inner harbour, with a depth of 18 to Soft. at low tide, and an outer harbour with a depth of 20 to 35ft. In 1926, 3,187 steamers engaged in foreign trade, of a total net tonnage of 3,736,104, entered the port. Of these steamers 1,865 were Spanish, 324 Italian and 184 British; the respective tonnages were ; 339,933. A competition was opened in 1927 for the lay-out of a free zone in the triangular area, on the left bank of the Llobregat, south of the Barcelona Villanueva railway; the zone will be entered by a channel inside the western breakwater. The air port of Barcelona, situated at present on the coast to the west of the mouth of the Llobregat, is an intermediate station on the French Latecoere line between Toulouse and Rabat, and on the Deutsche Lufthansa route from central Europe to Madrid. The port is now being transferred to a site farther inland and direct services with Valencia, Majorca and Italy are being established.
As a commercial city, Barcelona is the centre for the entire in dustrial area of Catalonia, which has its warehouses here. As an industrial city, it is characterized both by the great variety of its manufactures and by the amount of almost domestic manufacture, carried out in small workshops. The textile industry, especially the cotton industry, revived in 1746, is the most important, but the engineering works, including works for the construction of rolling stock for the railways, employ large numbers of people. Comestibles, raw materials and combustibles form the greater part of the imports, but this great manufactory also imports a considerable quantity of foreign manufactured goods. The princi pal exports are wine, olive oil, silk, cork, sandals, fertilizers, wool len and cotton goods, paper, etc.
History.—During the Roman period Barcino, a town of the Lacetani, raised to the rank of a colony under the name of Julia Faventia (afterwards Augudi and Pia) , gradually replaced Tar raco (Tarragona) as a seaport. The Bardjaluna of the Muslims, who captured it in 713, it became, after its reconquest by the Franks in 80 I, the chief town of the Marca Hispanica and, by the end of the 9th century, of the independent countship of Barce lona with recognized supremacy over its neighbours. The union in 1137 of Catalonia and Aragon was followed by the rise to political importance of the wealthy merchant class, from which were elected, at first exclusively, the members of the municipal council (Conseil de Cent) of Barcelona. Barcelona now became one of the foremost trading cities of the Mediterranean, the rival of Genoa and Venice, and its maritime code, Libro del Consulalo del Mar, dating from the late 13th century, was for long widely recognized as authoritative. By 1479, the date of the union of Aragon with Castile, the city had extended its direct jurisdiction by the technical inclusion within the munici pality of protected areas scattered over eastern Spain, and exer cised a virtual hegemony over the rest of the seaboard of Aragon; in municipal politics a democratic tradition had been established by the entry to the council, and final predominance there, of rep resentatives of the popular classes ; marked independence of the central authority had already been shown by the successful re sistance of the city to John II. of Aragon during the ten years ending in 1473. The relations of Barcelona with the new central government were prejudiced by the monopoly of the American trade granted to Andalusia, which persisted until 1778. In 1640 a flirtation with France and the revival in favour of Louis XIV. of the title of "Count of Barcelona" were illustrative of a tendency to play off a third party against Madrid rather than of any serious leanings towards France. During the War of the Succession Bar celona was taken in 1705 by the English under the earl of Peter borough, and the Archduke Charles was enthusiastically welcomed by the population, who paid the price of their enthusiasm when the Conseil de Cent was abolished by Philip V. after the recapture of the city in 1714. By this and by the suppression of the Catalan fueros in general, relations with Madrid were further embittered. No permanent traces were left of the French occupation of Bar celona between 1809 and 1813. In the modern period since 1815, the history of Barcelona has been marked by episodes indicative of social, industrial or political unrest, the combination of differ ent forms of unrest in one complex movement being characteristic of the city. Specially serious were the uprisings of 1835, when II convents were destroyed and of the "tragic week" in 1909, when over 6o churches and religious buildings disappeared from the city's architectural inheritance. The infantry committees of defence had their headquarters here in 1916, and it was here that the movement began which led to the establishment of the mili tary directory in 1923. The evolution of the labour movement from the earlier, pacific phase of the General Workers' Union (Union General de Trabajadores), founded at the second Bar celona Congress in 1888, to the phase characterized by the terror ist action of the Sindicato s nico led to the revolutionary strikes of 1919 and 192o. Barcelona is also the headquarters of the Catalonian separatist movement, and on Aug. 2, 1936, following the outbreak of civil war in Spain (q.v.), it became the seat of an autonomous Catalonian government.