The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain. It is the fourth most populous Spanish autonomous community after Andalusia, Catalonia and the Community of Madrid with more than 5 million inhabitants. Its eponymous capital and most populous city is Valencia, the third-largest city and metropolitan area in Spain. It is located along the Mediterranean coast on the east side of the Iberian Peninsula. It borders Catalonia to the north, Aragon and Castilla–La Mancha to the west, and Murcia to the south, and the Balearic Islands are to its east. The Valencian Community is divided into three provinces: Castellón, Valencia and Alicante.
According to Valencia's Statute of Autonomy, the Valencian people are a "historical nationality". Their origins date back to the 1238 conquest by James the Conqueror of the Taifa of Valencia. The newly founded Kingdom of Valencia enjoyed its own legal entity and administrative institutions as a component of the Crown of Aragon, under the purview of the Furs of Valencia. Valencia experienced its Golden Age in the 15th century, as it became the Crown's economic capital. Local institutions and laws continued during the dynastic union of the early modern Spanish Monarchy, but were suspended in 1707 as a result of the Spanish War of Succession. Valencian nationalism emerged towards the end of the 19th century, leading to the modern conception of the Valencian Country.Preamble on Valencian Statutes of Autonomy 1982 and 2006: "Aprovada la Constitució Espanyola, va ser, en el seu marc, on la tradició valenciana provinent de l'històric Regne de València es va trobar amb la concepció moderna del País Valencià i va donar origen a l'autonomia valenciana [...]" - Preamble of Valencian Statute of Autonomy (reformed in 2006) The current autonomous community under the Generalitat Valenciana self-government institution was established in 1982 after the Spanish Transition.
Official languages are Valencian (the official and traditional name used in the Valencian Community for the Romance language also known as Catalan)Decreto 84/2008, de 6 de junio, del Consell, por el que se ejecuta la sentencia de 20 de junio de 2005, de la Sala de lo Contencioso-Administrativo del Tribunal Superior de Justicia de la Comunitat Valenciana . and Spanish. As of 2024, the population of the Valencian Community comprised 10.9% of the Spanish population.
Etymology
The city of Valencia (capital of the Valencian Community) was founded by the Romans under the name of , or simply , which translates to "strength" or "valour", in full "strength of the Edetani" (the centre of Edetania was Edeta, an important old Iberian settlement 25 km north of Valencia, in what is now modern day Llíria, other important nearby settlements included Arse–Saguntum, Saetabis and Dianium).
With the establishment of the Muslim Taifa of Valencia, during the Al-Andalus period, the name developed to (). The modern names of the city are (Spanish) and (Valencian). The older spellings Valéncia, Valençia, Ualençia, Ualéncia and Ualència are also found in pre-reform Spanish and Valencian texts.
To distinguish it from its capital city, a number of names have been used for the region. After the Christian conquest, it became the Kingdom of Valencia. In the last decades, Valencian Community has become the preferred name to avoid any controversy.
Naming
Comunitat Valenciana ("Valencian Community") is the only denomination with official status in its Statute of Autonomy. Although it is the only name used by the institutions, this legal document includes in its Preamble other denominations that portray the history and nature of the territory: Regne de València ("Kingdom of Valencia") and País Valencià ("Valencian Country" or "Land of Valencia").
Comunitat Valenciana (in Valencian) is the sole official name and the one used in public administration and by most media, in both Spanish and Valencian. It is a neologism adopted after the democratic transition to resolve the conflict between two competing names then in use: "Valencian Country" and "Kingdom of Valencia". "Valencian Community" is the standard English translation of the official name. In Spanish, both Comunitat Valenciana and, less commonly, Comunidad Valenciana are used.
"Valencian Country" () came into common use during the Renaixença in the late 19th century and became firmly established during the Second Spanish Republic. It later gained further currency through the work of Joan Fuster in the 1960s, who framed it as part of the Catalan Countries. The term is seen as emphasizing the distinct nationality of the Valencian people and is favoured by left-wing and Valencian nationalist parties,Julve, Rafa ¿País Valencià, Comunitat Valenciana o Regne de València? "Solo parte de la izquierda siguió haciendo bandera de la fórmula País Valencià." by some civil associations, and by some private Valencian-language publications, including books and newspapers.Mollà, Toni (1998). "A Catalans language and linguistic community in the Valencian Country" Diàlegs: revista d'estudis polítics i socials Vol. 1, Nº. 2, 1998, pags. 33–45"...no le tenía el Señor destinado para el apóstol de las Indias, sino de nuestro País Valenciano" in Agustín Bella, Vida del venerable i apostòlic serf de Déu el P.M.Fr. Agustin Antonio Pascual ..., València 1699, impremta de Vicente Cabrera. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Signatura: 3/64918 . Reproducció: DGmicro/21722.Socialist Party of the Valencian Country (, PSPV) It is also widely used in academic publications.
The Kingdom of Valencia was the political entity governing most of the current Valencian territory between 1238 and 1707. Its name remained in local use from the 18th to the 20th centuries, largely confined to academic, cultural, and literary contexts, and was sometimes rendered as Antic Regne de València ("Old Kingdom of Valencia"). In the late 20th century, anti-Catalan blaverists proposed reviving it as the community's official name, explicitly rejecting "Valencian Country" because of its perceived association with the concept of the Catalan Countries.
The autonomous community can be eponymously identified with its capital "Valencia".According to article Valencia from Britannica Online Encyclopedia However, this can be perceived as overlooking the provinces of Alicante and Castellón. Less usual translations to English include "Land of Valencia",Scenery in Land of Valencia , edited by the Valencian Agency of Tourism "Region of Valencia"Terms mainly used from the Department of Tourism of the Valencian Government. See official publications, and an example of using "Region of Valencia". The other term, "Land of Valencia" is also used by this department and "Valencian Region".CVNews, English-language magazine published by the Valencia Region Tourist Board
In popular culture, as an affectionate term, the Valencian Community is commonly referred to as la TerretaLa Terreta. Expresiones Valencianas.. ("The Little Land" in Valencian).
History
The pre-Roman autochthonous people of the Valencian Community were the Iberians, who were divided in several groups (the Contestani, the Edetani, the Ilercavones and the Bastetani).
The Greeks established colonies in the coastal towns of Saguntum and Dianium beginning in the 5th century BC, where they traded and mixed with the local Iberian populations. After the end of the First Punic War between Carthage and Rome in 241 BC, which established their limits of influence in the Ebro river, the Carthaginians occupied the whole region. The dispute over the hegemony of Saguntum, a Hellenized Iberian coastal city with diplomatic contacts with Rome, destroyed by Hannibal in 219 BC, ignited the Second Punic War, which ended with the incorporation of the region to the Roman Empire.
The Romans founded the city of Valentia in 138 BC, which, over the centuries overtook Saguntum in importance. After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the Barbarian Invasions in the 5th century AD, the region was first invaded by the Alans and finally ruled by the Visigoths (see Valencian Gothic), until the arrival of the Arabs in 711, which left a broad impact in the region, still visible in today's Valencian landscape and culture. After the fall of the Caliphate of Cordova, two main independent taifas were established at the region, Valencia and Dénia, along with the small and short living taifas of Orihuela, Alpuente, Jérica and Sagunt and the short Christian conquest of Valencia by El Cid.
However, the origins of present-day Valencia date back to the Kingdom of Valencia, which came into existence in the 13th century. James I of Aragon led the Christian conquest and colonization of the existing Islamic taifas with Aragonese and Catalan colonizers in 1208; they founded the Kingdom of Valencia as a third independent country within the Crown of Aragon in 1238.
The kingdom developed intensively in the 14th and 15th centuries, which are considered the Golden Age of the Valencian culture,Siglo de Oro Valenciano (Spanish Wikipedia) with significant works like the chivalric romance of Tirant lo Blanch. Valencia developed into an important kingdom in Europe economically through the silk trade. It also rose to power politically with the rise of the Crown of Aragon, (within which the Kingdom of Valencia had achieved the largest population and the greatest economic power at that time)José Escribano Úbeda-Portugués: España y Europa a través de la Historia. Desde el siglo XV al Siglo XVIII pp 16-17 and the ascension of the Valencian House of Borja in Rome (see Route of the Borjas, Route of the Monasteries and Route of the Classics).
After a slow decline following the dynastic union of the Crown of Aragon with the Kingdom of Castile, Valencia's successful status came to a definite end with the Expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609 by the Hispanic Monarchy, which represented the loss of up to one third of the population of the Kingdom of Valencia and took the main agricultural labor force away.
In 1707, in the context of the War of the Spanish Succession, and by means of the Nova Planta decrees, king Philip V of Spain abolished the Kingdom of Valencia, and the rest of the states belonging to the former Crown of Aragon and which had retained some autonomy, and subordinated it to the structure of the Kingdom of Castile and its laws and customs. As a result of this, the institutions and laws created by the Law of Valencia (Furs de València) were abolished and the usage of the Valencian language in official instances and education was forbidden. Consequently, with the House of Bourbon, a new Kingdom of Spain was formed implementing a more centralized government and absolutist regime than the former Habsburg Spain.
The first attempt to gain self-government, or autonomous government, for the Valencian Community in modern-day Spain was during the Second Spanish Republic, in 1936, but the Civil War broke out and the autonomist project was suspended.Proyecto de Estatuto de Autonomía para el País Valenciano (1937) (Spanish Wikipedia) In 1977, after Franco's dictatorship Valencia started to be partially autonomous with the creation of the Council of the Valencian Country (Consell del País Valencià),Real Decreto-Ley 10/1978, de 17 de marzo, por el que se aprueba el Régimen Preautonómico del País Valenciano (Spanish Wikipedia) and in 1982 the self-government was finally extended into a Statute of Autonomy (Estatut d'Autonomia) creating several self-government institutions under the Generalitat Valenciana. The first democratically elected President of the Generalitat Valenciana, Joan Lerma, took office in 1982 as part of the transition to autonomy.