In Spain , a comarca ( Spanish: [koˈmaɾka] ) is either a traditional territorial division without any formal basis, or a group of municipalities, legally defined by an autonomous community for the purpose of providing common local government services. In English, a comarca is equivalent to a district , county , area or zone .
14-972: Campo Charro is one of the 11 comarcas in the province of Salamanca , Castile and León . It contains 42 municipalities: Aldeatejada , Aldehuela de la Bóveda , Arapiles , Barbadillo , Barbalos , Berrocal de Huebra , Buenamadre , Calvarrasa de Abajo , Calvarrasa de Arriba , Calzada de Don Diego , Canillas de Abajo , Carbajosa de la Sagrada , Carrascal de Barregas , Carrascal del Obispo , Doñinos de Salamanca , El Pino de Tormes , Florida de Liébana , Galindo y Perahuy , Garcirrey , La Sagrada , Las Veguillas , Machacón , Matilla de los Caños del Río , Miranda de Azán , Monterrubio de la Sierra , Morille , Mozárbez , Narros de Matalayegua , Parada de Arriba , Pelabravo , Pelarrodríguez , Robliza de Cojos , Salamanca , San Muñoz , San Pedro de Rozados , Sanchón de la Sagrada , Santa Marta de Tormes , Tamames , Tejeda y Segoyuela , Vecinos , Villagonzalo de Tormes and Villalba de los Llanos . This article about
28-529: A comarca may correspond to a natural area, like a valley, river basin and mountainous area, or even to historical regions overlapping different provinces and ancient kingdoms (e.g. Ilercavonia ). In such comarcas or natural regions municipalities have resorted to organizing themselves in mancomunidad (commonwealth), like the Taula del Sénia , the only legal formula that has allowed those comarcas to manage their public municipal resources meaningfully. There
42-918: A location in the province of Salamanca, Spain, is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Comarcas of Spain The large majority of legally defined comarcas are in Catalonia (42) and Aragon (33) , and are regulated by law and are governed by a comarcal council with specified powers. There are seven comarcas formally registered in Basque Country and one, El Bierzo , in Castile and León. In Andalusia , Galicia , Valencia and Asturias , comarcas are defined by regional law but lack any defined function. In other regions, comarcas are traditional or historical or in some cases, contemporary creations designed for tourism promotions. In some other cases (e.g. La Carballeda )
56-572: A province is the Provincial council , but their existence is controversial . As the province is defined as a "local entity" in the Constitution, the Provincial council belongs to the sphere of local government . The layout of Spain's provinces closely follows the pattern of the territorial division of the country carried out in 1833 . The only major change of provincial borders since that time has been
70-658: Is also a comarca, the Cerdanya that is divided between two states, the southwestern half being counted as a comarca of Spain, while the northeastern half is part of France . There are also other groupings of municipalities in Spain including provinces , mancomunidades , metropolitan areas and the major islands of the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands . Legally defined comarcas have their boundaries and functions defined by
84-517: Is given, together with an indication of the autonomous community to which it belongs and a link to a list of municipalities in the province. The names of the provinces and their capitals are ordered alphabetically according to the form in which they appear in the main Misplaced Pages articles describing them. Unless otherwise indicated, their Spanish-language names are the same; locally valid names in Spain's other co-official languages ( Basque , Catalan , which
98-571: The 1810 Napoleonic division of Spain into 84 prefectures. There are many other groupings of municipalities that comprise the local government of Spain . The boundaries of provinces can only be altered by the Spanish Parliament, giving rise to the common view that the 17 autonomous communities are subdivided into 50 provinces . In reality the system is not hierarchical but defined according to jurisdiction ( Spanish : competencias ). The body charged with government and administration of
112-520: The 1978 Constitution . Consequently, no province is divided between these communities. The importance of the provinces has declined since the adoption of the system of autonomous communities in the period of the Spanish transition to democracy . They nevertheless remain electoral districts for national elections. Provinces are also used as geographical references: for instance in postal addresses and telephone codes. National media will also frequently use
126-748: The UN's Second Administrative Level Boundaries data set project (SALB). Most of the provinces are named after their capital town —with the exceptions of Álava , Asturias , Biscay , Cantabria , Gipuzkoa , the Balearic Islands , La Rioja , and Navarre , and a name reduction in Las Palmas and Castellón — and biggest town —with the exception of Pontevedra ( Vigo ), Asturias ( Gijón ) and Cádiz ( Jerez ). Only two capitals of autonomous communities— Mérida in Extremadura and Santiago de Compostela in Galicia —are not also
140-469: The capitals of provinces. Seven of the autonomous communities comprise no more than one province each: Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, La Rioja, Madrid , Murcia , and Navarre. These are sometimes referred to as "uniprovincial" communities. Ceuta , Melilla , and the plazas de soberanía are not part of any province. The table below lists the provinces of Spain. For each, the capital city
154-505: The division of the Province of Canary Islands into the provinces of Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife . Historically, the provinces served mainly as transmission belts for policies enacted in Madrid, as Spain was a highly centralised state for most of its modern history. The provinces were the "building-blocks" from which the autonomous communities were created following processed defined in
SECTION 10
#1732855857814168-548: The national classification into provinces) establish six comarcas: Provinces of Spain A province in Spain is a territorial division defined as a collection of municipalities . The current provinces of Spain correspond by and large to the provinces created under the purview of the 1833 territorial re-organization of Spain , with a similar predecessor from 1822 (during the Trienio Liberal ) and an earlier precedent in
182-457: The province to disambiguate small towns or communities whose names occur frequently throughout Spain. A small town would normally be identified as being in, say, Valladolid province rather than the autonomous community of Castile and León . In addition, organisations outside Spain use provinces for statistical analysis and policy making and in comparison with other countries including NUTS , OECD , FIPS , CIA World Factbook , ISO 3166-2 and
196-603: The relevant regional government ( autonomous community ) and so do not necessarily have boundaries consistent with provinces which are defined by the State. The remit of comarcas is very similar to that of the provinces and has been criticised for duplication. However in Catalonia, the comarca (and not the province) has been the traditional territorial organisation. Reference: An official classification establishes three comarcas: or sometimes four: However, historic approaches (before
#813186