Number of municipalities and population. Counties and Aran

Territorial area

Group of simple counties established by law, the aim of which is the development of sectorial territorial plans and the possible decentralisation of the Generalitat's services derived from the development of these plans. Law 23/2010, of July 22, on the creation of the area of Penedès, modifies the previous laws (Law 1/19965, of March 16; Law 24/2001, of December 31) and divides Catalonia into eight territorial planning regions.

County

Local territorial entity, institutionalised by Law 6/1987, of April 4, in the county organisation of Catalonia. It is made up of a group of contiguous municipalities that have their own autonomy and legal personality. The Statute attributes them the character of being necessary parts of the territorial organisation of Catalonia, along with municipalities. The county organisation applies throughout the territory of Catalonia, and no municipality can be excluded nor may form part of more than one county. The territory of the county is the area over which the county council exercises its responsibilities and is defined by the boundaries of the group of municipal regions of the municipalities that it consists of.

Municipality

Administrative constituency of a territorial nature, governed by a council, considered the basic unit of territorial organisation and primary element of citizen participation in public affairs, as established by Law 8/1987, of April 15 on municipalities and the local regime for Catalonia. A municipality enjoys its own autonomy, is of a legal character and has full capacity to exercise the public functions bestowed upon it, in order to represent the interests of its respective collective and to manage the public services that it assumed ownership of. The government and administration of the municipality correspond to the municipal council.

Population

All inhabitants of a given place. Since 1996, when the continuous management system was established for the Municipal Population Register, in accordance with Royal Decree 2612/1996, of December 20, official population figures for municipalities have been obtained annually using data referred to January 1 of each year.

Province

Local territorial entity formed by a contiguous group of municipalities, of a legal nature and with full capacity to accomplish its aims, in accordance with Law 7/1985, which regulates the standards for the local regime. These aims are: to coordinate municipal services is order to guarantee the integral and adequate provision of these services throughout the territory of the province; to facilitate legal, judicial, economic and specialist assistance and cooperation with the municipalities; to provide supra-county level public services and to foster and administrate the particular interests of the province. Government and administration of Catalan provinces corresponds to the respective provincial councils, or deputations.

The new county of El Moianès was created as of 1 May 2015 (Law 4/2015, of 23 April, on the creation of the county of El Moianès) from the aggregation of five municipalities of the county of El Bages, one from the county of Osona and four from the county of El Vallès Oriental.

For further information about these statistics, you may check the methodology.