Barcelona
Barcelona is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.7 million within city limits, its urban area extends to numerous neighbouring municipalities within the province of Barcelona and is home to around 5.7 million people, making it the fifth most populous urban area of the European Union after Paris, the Ruhr area, Madrid and Milan. It is one of the largest metropolises on the Mediterranean Sea, located on the coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs, bounded to the west by the Serra de Collserola mountain range.
According to tradition, Barcelona was founded by either the Phoenicians or the Carthaginians, who had trading posts along the Catalonian coast. In the Middle Ages, Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. After joining with the Kingdom of Aragon to form the composite monarchy of the Crown of Aragon, Barcelona, which continued to be the capital of the Principality of Catalonia, became the most important city in the Crown of Aragon and its main economic and administrative centre, only to be overtaken by Valencia, wrested from Moorish control by the Catalans, shortly before the dynastic union between the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1516. Barcelona became the centre of Catalan separatism, briefly becoming part of France during the 17th century Reapers' War and again in 1812 until 1814 under Napoleon. Experiencing industrialization and several workers movements during the 19th and early 20th century, it became the capital of autonomous Catalonia in 1931 and it was the epicenter of the revolution experienced by Catalonia during the Spanish Revolution of 1936, until its capture by the fascists in 1939. After the Spanish transition to democracy in the 1970s, Barcelona once again became the capital of an autonomous Catalonia.
Barcelona has a rich cultural heritage and is today an important cultural centre and a major tourist destination. Particularly renowned are the architectural works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner, which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The city is home to two of the most prestigious universities in Spain: the University of Barcelona and Pompeu Fabra University. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean are located in Barcelona. The city is known for hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics as well as world-class [|conferences and expositions]. In addition, many international sport tournaments have been played here.
Barcelona is a major cultural, economic, and financial centre in southwestern Europe, as well as the main biotech hub in Spain. As a leading world city, Barcelona's influence in global socio-economic affairs qualifies it for global city status.
Barcelona is a transport hub, with the Port of Barcelona being one of Europe's principal seaports and busiest European passenger port, an international airport, Barcelona–El Prat Airport, which handles over 50-million passengers per year, an [|extensive motorway network], and a high-speed rail line with a link to France and the rest of Europe.
Names
The name Barcelona comes from the ancient Iberian Baŕkeno, attested in an ancient coin inscription found on the right side of the coin in Iberian script as, in Ancient Greek sources as Βαρκινών, Barkinṓn; and in Latin as Barcino, Barcilonum and Barcenona.Other sources suggest that the city may have been named after the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who was supposed to have founded the city in the 3rd century BC, but there is no evidence its name in antiquity, Barcino, was connected with the Barcid family of Hamilcar. During the Middle Ages, the city was variously known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa, and Barchenona.
An abbreviated form sometimes used by locals for the city is Barna. Barça is only applied to the local football club FC Barcelona, not to the city. Another common abbreviation is 'BCN', which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport.
The city is referred to as the Ciutat Comtal in Catalan and Ciudad Condal in Spanish, owing to its past as the seat of the Count of Barcelona.
History
Legendary founding
The origin of the earliest settlement at the site of present-day Barcelona is unclear. The ruins of an early settlement have been found, including different tombs and dwellings dating to earlier than 5000 BC. In Greek mythology, the founding of Barcelona had been attributed to the mythological Hercules.Punic Barcelona
According to tradition, Barcelona was founded by Punic settlers, who had trading posts along the Catalonian coast. In particular, some historians attribute the foundation of the city directly to the historical Carthaginian general, Hamilcar Barca, father of Hannibal, who supposedly named the city Barcino after his family in the 3rd century BC, but this theory has been questioned. Iberia and Barcelona was controlled by the Carthaginian Empire and was an important location for trade due to its proximity to Punic Ibiza. Archeological evidence in the form of coins from the 3rd century BC have been found on the hills at the foot of Montjuïc with the name Bárkeno written in an ancient script in the Iberian language. Thus, some has argued that the Laietani, an ancient Iberian people of the Iberian peninsula, who inhabited the area occupied by the city of Barcelona around 3–2 BC after the Punic withdrawal from Iberia, called the area Bàrkeno, which means "The Place of the Plains".Roman Barcelona
In about 15 BC, the Romans redrew the town as a castrum centred on the "Mons Taber", a little hill near the Generalitat and city hall buildings. The Roman Forum, at the crossing of the Cardo Maximus and Decumanus Maximus, was approximately placed where current Plaça de Sant Jaume is. Thus, the political centre of the city, Catalonia, and its domains has remained in the same place for over 2,000 years.Under the Romans, it was a colony with the surname of Faventia, or, in full, Colonia Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barcino or Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. Pomponius Mela mentions it among the small towns of the district, probably as it was eclipsed by its neighbour Tarraco, but it may be gathered from later writers that it gradually grew in wealth and consequence, favoured as it was with a beautiful situation and an excellent harbour. It enjoyed immunity from imperial burdens. The city minted its own coins; some from the era of Galba survive.
Important Roman vestiges are displayed in Plaça del Rei underground, as a part of the Barcelona City History Museum ; the typically Roman grid plan is still visible today in the layout of the historical centre, the Barri Gòtic. Some remaining fragments of the Roman walls have been incorporated into the cathedral. The cathedral, Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Barcelona, is also sometimes called La Seu, which simply means cathedral in Catalan. It is said to have been founded in 343.
Medieval Barcelona
The city was conquered by the Visigoths in the early 5th century, becoming for a few years the capital of all Hispania. After being conquered by the Umayyads in the early 8th century, it was conquered after a siege in 801 by Charlemagne's son Louis, who made Barcelona the seat of the Carolingian "Hispanic March", a buffer zone ruled by the Count of Barcelona.The Counts of Barcelona became increasingly independent and expanded their territory to include much of modern Catalonia, although in 985, Barcelona was sacked by the army of Almanzor. The sack was so traumatic that most of Barcelona's population was either killed or enslaved. In 1137, Aragon and the County of Barcelona merged in dynastic union by the marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronilla of Aragon, their titles finally borne by only one person when their son Alfonso II of Aragon ascended to the throne in 1162. His territories were later to be known as the Crown of Aragon, which conquered many overseas possessions and ruled the western Mediterranean Sea with outlying territories in Naples and Sicily and as far as Athens in the 13th century.
Barcelona also had a substantial Jewish community at the time, then the largest Jewish community in the Crown of Aragon. Called "," for the many small streets that defined the area, it later became enclosed. Montjuïc or Montjuich, in medieval Latin and Catalan, meaning "Jewish Mountain" and the birthplace of the city, is the site of a medieval Jewish cemetery, Jews continued to live in Barcelona until the Massacre of 1391 diminished their numbers. The Spanish Inquisition forced the remaining Jews who refused to convert to Christianity to be burned at the stake, or sell their property and leave.
Barcelona was the leading slave trade centre of the Crown of Aragon up until the 15th century, when it was eclipsed by Valencia. It initially fed from eastern and Balkan slave stock later drawing from a Maghribian and, ultimately, Subsaharan pool of slaves.
The Bank or Taula de canvi de Barcelona, often viewed as the oldest public bank in Europe, was established by the city magistrates in 1401. It originated from necessities of the state, as did the Bank of Venice and the Bank of Genoa.
Barcelona under the Spanish monarchy
In the beginning of the early modern period, Barcelona lost political primacy, but the economy managed to achieve a balance between production capacity and imports. In the context of the wider early recovery of Catalonia from the 17th-century crisis in the second half of the century, increasing maritime activity since 1675 doubled traffic in the port of Barcelona compared to figures from the beginning of the 17th century. In the late 17th and early 18th century, Barcelona repeatedly endured the effects of war, including the 1691 bombing, the sieges of 1697, 1704, 1705, 1706, and the 1713 blockade and ensuing 1714 siege and assault. In the 18th century, the population grew from 30,000 to about 100,000 inhabitants, as the city became one of the key mercantile centres in the Western Mediterranean, with inland influence up to Zaragoza, and to the south up to Alicante. A fortress was built at Montjuïc that overlooked the harbour. Much of Barcelona was negatively affected by the Napoleonic wars, but the start of industrialization saw the fortunes of the province improve.During the 19th century, Catalan business interests, many of them based in Barcelona, became increasingly involved in the Atlantic slave trade, taking advantage of the void left by the British abolition of the trade in 1807. Catalan immigrants in Spanish America also became heavily involved in owning and running slave plantations in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Between 1817 and 1867, Catalans were involved in the transportation of 700,000 slaves from West Africa to the Caribbean, which "financed much of the industrialisation of Catalonia and the 19th-century building boom in Barcelona." Although the Spanish government had abolished slave trading in 1817, it turned a blind eye to illicit slave trading. When slavery was abolished in the Spanish Empire in 1886, many Catalans returned to Barcelona and invested their newfound fortunes in constructing opulent mansions in areas such as La Rambla.