| Vegueries of Catalonia | |
|---|---|
 The eight vegueries of Catalonia and the autonomousAran Valley as of 2025. | |
| Category | Regional government (de jure) Service distribution regions Statistical regions |
| Location | Catalonia |
| Found in | Autonomous community |
| Created by | Catalan Vegueries Law [ca] |
| Number | 8 (as of 2025) |
| Populations | 65,998–5,066,684 |
| Government |
|
| Subdivisions | |
Avegueria (Catalan pronunciation:[bəɣəˈɾi.ə]), pluralvegueries, is the highest-levelregional division of Catalonia. Each vegueria is further divided intocomarques andmunicipalities. As of 2025, theCatalan Vegueries Law [ca] divides the territory into eight vegueries.[1] The autonomousAran Valley, considered a "unique territorial entity", is not part of any of vegueria.[2]
The vegueries system is based on thefeudal administrative territorial jurisdiction of thePrincipality of Catalonia, which was abolished with theNueva Planta decrees of 1716.[3] Preceding the vegueries is the division into ‘functional territorial areas’ in 1995, now mostly identical to the vegueries, with the exception of the merger of the Aran Valley andAlt Pirineu into a singleAlt Pirineu i Aran region, established for statistical purposes. The current administrative division was established by theStatute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006 with two functions: an inter-municipal government and the arrangement of the services from theGeneralitat de Catalunya.[4]
Although the vegueries are intended to become Catalonia's only first-level administrative division and a full replacement for the fourdiputacions of the officialprovinces of Catalonia within theSpanish system in the future and create a council for each vegueria,[5] the latter is currently still used administratively at state level,[6][7] as any changes to the State's provinces were ruled to violate theSpanish Constitution.[8] Thus, in practice, despite being official, vegueries are not allowed to carry the administrative powers of the provinces and currently remain only usable for similar territorial deployments to those carried out by the areas, e.g. government services, weather reports, commercial distribution, media coverage,curfew during the COVID-19 pandemic,television frequencies, etc.[4]
| Location | Vegueria | Capital city[1] | Population (1 Jan 2024)[9] | Date approved[10] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Alt Pirineu | La Seu d'Urgell[a] | 65,998 | July 2006 |
 | Barcelona | Barcelona | 5,066,684 | April 2010 |
 | Camp de Tarragona | Tarragona | 555,957 | January 2010 |
 | Catalunya Central | Manresa[b] | 427,296 | September 2008 |
 | Girona | Girona | 804,851 | October 2010 |
 | Lleida | Lleida | 375,964 | July 2007 |
 | Penedès | Vilanova i la Geltrú[c] | 517,499 | February 2017[11] |
 | Terres de l'Ebre | Tortosa | 187,437 | August 2010 |
The origins of the vegueria go back to the era of theCarolingian Empire, whenvicars (Latin:vicarii, singularvicarius) were installed beneath the counts in theMarca Hispanica. The office of a vicar was a vicariate (Latin:vicariatus) and his territory was avicaria. All these Latin terms of Carolingian administration evolved in theCatalan language even as they disappeared in the rest of Europe. The Catalan terms were even subsequentlyLatinised:vicarius →vigerius.
The original functions of the vigeriate were feudal and it was probably initially hereditary. The veguer was appointed by his feudal lord, the count, and was accountable to him. He was the military commander of his vegueria (and thus keeper of the publicly owned castles), the chief justice of the same district, and the man in charge of the public finances (thefisc) of the region entrusted to him. As time wore on, the functions of the veguer became more and more judicial in nature. He held acort del veguer orde la vegueria with its own seal. Thecort had authority in all matter save those relating to the feudal aristocracy. It commonly heard pleas of the crown, civil, and criminal cases. The veguer did, however, retain some military functions as well: he was the commander of the militia and the superintendent of royal castles. His job was law and order and the maintenance of the king's peace: in many respects an office analogous to that of thesheriff inEngland.
At the end of the twelfth century in Catalonia, there were twelve vegueries. By the end of the reign ofPeter the Great (1285) there were seventeen, and by the time ofJames the Just there were twenty one. Some of the larger vegueries included one or moresotsvegueries (subvigueries), which had a large degree of autonomy.
While thePrincipality of Catalonia continued to use vegueries as subdivisions of counties, elsewhere in theIberian Peninsula there were themerináticos (Kingdom of Aragon) and thecorregimientos (Kingdom of Castile) whose functions were similar to those of the Catalan vegueries.
When theKingdom of Sicily became a Catalan-run state, it was not subdivided into vegueries, since a similar Italian institution was already entrenched there: that of thecapitania and thecapità. Thecapità had similar to identical functions as the veguer. When the Catalansconquered theDuchy of Athens, they subdivided that duchy into three vegueries: Athens,Thebes, andLivadia.[12] In theDuchy of Neopatras which the Catalans conquered in 1319, the institution of thecapità appeared instead of the vigeriate, but the captaincies (Siderokastron,Neopatras, andSalona) were similar to identical in function to the vegueries of Athens. In Athens, the offices of captain and veguer were often held by the same individual ascapitaneus seu vigerius and variants. Once the Aragonese crown had finally subdued most of theKingdom of Sardinia to their rule by the end of the fourteenth century, they had subdivided its government into vegueries. All the vegueries of the Catalan possessions were, by theUsages of Barcelona, constrained to be held for only three years by any individual, though in practice some kings ignored this. In Athens, avicar general on the Italian model was instituted above the veguers.
Catalan vegueries have changed their limits along the history and there has not always been the same number of them. The vegueries of Catalonia at the time ofJames the Just were:[13][14][15]
Later, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, four more vegueries were created:
Vegueries were officially abolished in 1716, when the vegueries were replaced by 12corregimientos, a historicalCastilian administrative division.[3] In 1833, thenew Spanish territorial division divided Spain into provinces, subdividing Catalonia in four (Barcelona,Lleida,Tarragona andGirona), which did not adequate to the comarques, but outside of minor differences remains in use today.[20]
During theSecond Spanish Republic, after Cataloniaobtained an autonomous government, it was divided into nine regions, which, in turn, were subdivided intocomarques. The organisation was as follows:
In 1937, a government decree reinstated the name ofvegueries, but they were abolished by theFrancoist regime at the end of theSpanish Civil War.[5]
Following Franco's death andSpain's return to a democratic system, the Catalan comarques were reinstated by theCatalan government in 1987, although the vegueries have yet to be formally recognised by the State.
Under the 2006 Statute of Autonomy, the four Catalandiputacions, which follow the Spanish province system, were to be superseded by sevenconsells de vegueries, additionally taking over many of thecomarques' functions. However, in June 2010, theSpanish Constitutional Court declared any changes to the statewide provinces system as unconstitutional, thus only allowing vegueries as long as the provinces system remained.[8][4] The Vegueries Law was approved on 27 July 2010 inParliament. The approval provided for the replacement of the provincial councils by their own bodies, the vegueria councils (consell de vegueria), formed by the president and the Vegueria councillors.[21] Although the law allows for an inter-municipal government and the organisation of the services of theGeneralitat de Catalunya, the unapproved proposal aims to replace the current provincial deputations and to make the administrative structures more efficient.[22]
The law does not define any vegueria capitals and allows for creating or deleting any.[23] After some opposition from some territories, it was made possible for the Aran Valley to retain its government (included in the Regional Plan asAlt Pirineu i Aran, vegueria namedAlt Pirineu)[24] and on August 3, 2016, Parliament approved the legislative initiative that advocated the creation of the eighth vegueria, Penedès.[11][4]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)