Province of Teruel


Teruel is a province of Aragon, in the northeast of Spain. The capital is Teruel.
It is bordered by the provinces of Tarragona, Castellón, Valencia, Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Zaragoza. The area of the province is 14,809 km². Its population is 134,572, of whom about a quarter live in the capital, and its population density is 9.36/km². It contains 236 municipalities, of which more than half are villages of under 200 people. Teruel is the second-least populated province of Spain, and also the second-lowest in population density, in both counts after the province of Soria.
The main language throughout the province is Spanish, although Catalan is spoken in a northeastern area bordering Catalonia.
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Geography

This province is located in the mountainous Iberian System. The main ranges in the province of Teruel are Sierra de la Virgen, Sierra de Santa Cruz, Sierra de Cucalón, Sierra de San Just, Sierra Carrascosa, Sierra Menera, Sierra Palomera, Sierra de Javalambre, Sierra de Gúdar, Sierra de Albarracín and the Montes Universales, among others.

Depopulation and neglect

Most of Teruel Province has undergone massive depopulation since the middle of the 20th century. This situation is shared with other areas in Spain, particularly with those near the Iberian System, and with other areas in Aragon.
The exodus from the rural mountain areas in Teruel rose after Francisco Franco's Plan de Estabilización in 1959. The population declined steeply as people migrated towards the industrial areas and large cities in Spain, leaving behind their small villages where living conditions were often harsh, with cold winters and very basic facilities.
As a consequence there are many ghost towns in different parts of the province.
A great number of surviving towns in Teruel have only a residual population, reviving somewhat during the summer when a few city-dwellers spend their holidays there. Other causes of the strong emigration are the low productivity of traditional agricultural practices, like sheep and goat farming, the closing of mines, like the large Sierra Menera mine near Ojos Negros, as well as the lifestyle changes that swept over rural Spain during the second half of the 20th century.
The Teruel Exists movement began at the turn of the 21st century. It is a platform of provincial authorities, institutions and sympathizers seeking to reverse the long-standing neglect of the province.

Population development

The historical population is given in the following chart:

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id:darkgrey value:gray
id:sfondo value:rgb
ImageSize = width:650 height:auto barincrement:30
PlotArea = left:40 bottom:40 top:20 right:20
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:270
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
AlignBars = late
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color:skyblue width:20 shift: fontsize:M anchor:till
bar:1877 from:0 till:249 text:248,765
bar:1887 from:0 till:247 text:246,817
bar:1900 from:0 till:252 text:251,994
bar:1910 from:0 till:266 text:265,908
bar:1920 from:0 till:264 text:264,062
bar:1930 from:0 till:264 text:263,700
bar:1940 from:0 till:246 text:245,960
bar:1950 from:0 till:243 text:243,269
bar:1960 from:0 till:224 text:223,758
bar:1970 from:0 till:174 text:173,861
bar:1980 from:0 till:153 text:153,457
bar:1990 from:0 till:144 text:143,680
bar:2000 from:0 till:136 text:135,858
bar:2010 from:0 till:143 text:143,162
bar:2020 from:0 till:134 text:134,176
TextData=
pos: fontsize:M
text:"Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE"

Comarcas

The following Comarcas of Aragon are located in Teruel:

Notable people