Barcelona › About the city
This is Barcelona
Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and Spain’s second city, a Mediterranean port between the mountains and the sea. Its medieval Gothic Quarter, the buildings of Antoni Gaudí and the other Modernista architects, and La Rambla running down to the harbour have made it one of the most visited cities in Europe.
Barcelona at a glance
- Country
- Spain
- Autonomous community
- Catalonia
- Population
- About 1.7 million (city), 5 million (metropolitan region)
- Founded
- Late 1st century BC, as the Roman colony of Barcino
- Sea
- The Mediterranean
- Languages
- Catalan and Spanish
- Nickname
- The Ciutat Comtal (City of Counts)
- UNESCO World Heritage
- The works of Antoni Gaudí (since 1984), and the Palau de la Música Catalana and the Hospital de Sant Pau (since 1997)
Known for
- Gaudí’s Sagrada Família, Park Güell, Casa Batlló and La Pedrera
- La Rambla, the Boqueria market and the lanes of the Gothic Quarter
- FC Barcelona and the 1992 Olympic Games
- Tapas, pa amb tomàquet and the human towers of the castellers
The city
Barcelona lies on a plain between the hills of Collserola and the Mediterranean, between the rivers Llobregat and Besòs. The old town, the Ciutat Vella, sits by the harbour; around it spreads the Eixample, the 19th-century grid of wide streets and cut-off corners where the Modernista architects built their houses; beyond lie the old villages the city swallowed, such as Gràcia and Sants.
The old town is the part you ride through in Instant Barcelona. La Rambla runs from Plaça de Catalunya down to the Columbus Monument and the harbour, with the Raval to the west and the Gothic Quarter to the east. Via Laietana cuts the Gothic Quarter off from the Born and Sant Pere, and the cathedral and Plaça de Sant Jaume, with the seats of the Catalan government and the city council, stand in the middle on the site of the Roman town.
Where it lies
Barcelona lies in the north-east of Spain, on the Mediterranean coast south of the French border. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Catalonia. The hill of Montjuïc rises over the harbour to the south, and Tibidabo, at 512 metres the highest point of the Collserola hills, looks down on the city from the north-west.
The climate is Mediterranean, with hot, humid summers and mild winters. For the Olympic Games of 1992 the city cleared the old industry from its waterfront and opened kilometres of sandy beaches.
The centre on a map
The streets, squares and waterways every visitor to Barcelona ends up in. Point at one to find it on the map.
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1
Plaça de Catalunya square
The big square between the old town and the Eixample, where La Rambla, the Passeig de Gràcia and the metro lines meet.
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2
La Rambla street
The tree-lined promenade from Plaça de Catalunya to the harbour, along the bed of a stream that once ran outside the medieval walls.
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3
Portal de l’Àngel street
The busy pedestrian shopping street from Plaça de Catalunya towards the cathedral, named after a gate in the medieval walls.
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4
Avinguda de la Catedral street
The broad open space in front of the cathedral, where people dance the sardana, the Catalan circle dance, at weekends.
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5
Plaça del Rei square
The medieval square of the royal palace of the counts and kings, now part of the city’s history museum, with Roman Barcino excavated beneath it.
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6
Gothic Quarter Barri Gòtic quarter
The oldest part of the city, on the site of Roman Barcino, a maze of narrow lanes between La Rambla and Via Laietana.
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7
Carrer del Bisbe street
The lane from Plaça de Sant Jaume to the cathedral, crossed by a neo-Gothic bridge that was only built in 1928.
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8
Plaça de Sant Jaume square
The square where the Palau de la Generalitat, the seat of the Catalan government, faces the city hall across the old Roman forum.
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9
Plaça Reial square
An arcaded square of the 1840s off La Rambla, with palm trees and lamp posts designed by the young Gaudí.
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10
El Raval quarter
The old town west of La Rambla, whose name means suburb. Convents and hospitals filled it first, then textile mills, and today it is the most mixed district of the city.
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11
Via Laietana street
The straight avenue that the city cut through the old town from 1908, from the harbour to the Eixample.
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12
Passeig del Born street
The long, narrow square between Santa Maria del Mar and the old Born market, where the city held jousts and fairs in the Middle Ages.
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13
Plaça del Portal de la Pau square
The square at the bottom of La Rambla, by the harbour, where the Columbus Monument points out to sea.
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14
The Old Harbour Port Vell waterway
Barcelona’s old harbour at the foot of La Rambla, where a wooden walkway, the Rambla de Mar, crosses to the Maremàgnum and the aquarium.
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15
Sagrada Família building
Gaudí’s great basilica in the Eixample, begun in 1882 and still being built, about two kilometres north of the old town.
History
Barcino and the counts
The Romans founded the small walled town of Barcino under Augustus, on a low hill where the cathedral stands today. Parts of its walls and four columns of its temple survive in the Gothic Quarter. After Rome fell, the Visigoths took the town, then the Moors in the 8th century, and in 801 the Franks under Louis the Pious.
Barcelona became the seat of the counts of Barcelona, who over time broke away from the Frankish kings and brought most of the other Catalan counties under their rule. The Moorish general Almanzor sacked the city in 985. In 1137 Count Ramon Berenguer IV was betrothed to the heiress of Aragon, and the two crowns were joined in what became the Crown of Aragon.
A Mediterranean power
In the 13th and 14th centuries Barcelona’s merchants and fleets traded across the Mediterranean, and the Crown of Aragon won the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Sardinia. The city built most of its Gothic Quarter in those years: the cathedral from 1298, Santa Maria del Mar from 1329, the royal shipyards of the Drassanes and the great hall of the royal palace.
After the union of Castile and Aragon, trade moved to the Atlantic and power to Castile. Ferdinand and Isabella received Columbus in Barcelona in 1493, on his return from America. Catalonia rose against the king in 1640, and in the War of the Spanish Succession Barcelona held out against the Bourbon army until 11 September 1714. Philip V abolished Catalonia’s own institutions and built a fortress, the Ciutadella, to keep the city in check.
Industry, Modernisme and the Olympic city
In the 19th century Barcelona became the industrial heart of Spain, full of textile mills. In 1854 it began to pull down its walls, and Ildefons Cerdà laid out the Eixample, the grid of new streets around the old town. The Universal Exposition of 1888 and the International Exposition of 1929 transformed the Ciutadella and Montjuïc, and Gaudí, Domènech i Montaner and Puig i Cadafalch filled the new districts with Modernista buildings.
In the Spanish Civil War Barcelona was a stronghold of the Republic, and Franco’s troops took it in January 1939. Under his dictatorship the Catalan language was suppressed. After democracy returned, Catalonia regained its self-government, and the Olympic Games of 1992 opened the city to the sea and to the world.
Barcelona today
Barcelona is the seat of the Catalan government, the Generalitat, and its parliament. The city lives from trade, industry, design, tourism and congresses, among them the Mobile World Congress, and its port is one of the busiest in Europe for cruise ships. So many visitors come that the city now limits new hotels and tourist flats.
The Catalans celebrate Sant Jordi on 23 April by giving each other books and roses, and the city’s great festival, La Mercè, in September, with castellers, giants and fire-runs. FC Barcelona, more than a club as its motto says, is one of the most famous football clubs in the world; its rival RCD Espanyol plays just outside the city, in Cornellà.
Read on
- This is Barcelona Barcelona’s official tourist information
- Ajuntament de Barcelona The city council
- Sagrada Família Tickets and opening hours for the basilica
- Works of Antoni Gaudí on UNESCO The World Heritage listing
- Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau on UNESCO The World Heritage listing
- Barcelona on Wikipedia The encyclopedia article