The 1833 territorial division of Spain divided the country into provinces, in turn classified into "historic regions" (). Real Decreto de 30 de noviembre de 1833 on Wikisource;Real Decreto de 30 de noviembre de 1833 on the official web site of the government of the Canary Islands. Retrieved 31 December 2009. Original announcement in the Gaceta num. 154. on the Agencia Estatal Boletin Oficial del Estado of Spain. This division was followed (helped by the enforcing of the 1834 Royal Statute) by the ensuing creation of provincial deputations, the government institutions for most of the provinces, remaining up to this date. Nearly all of the provinces retain roughly or precisely the 1833 borders.Daniele Conversi, The Spanish Federalist Tradition and the 1978 Constitution , p. 12, footnote 63. Retrieved 31 December 2000. Conversely, many of the historic regions correspond to present-day autonomous communities. Eduardo Barrenechea, Los 'gibraltares' de unas regiones en otras: Treviño, Llivia, Rincón de Ademuz..., El País, 8 February 1983. Retrieved 30 December 2000. This article comments on the persistence of the 1833 territorial division, in the context of a discussion of the remaining exclaves of various provinces.
Background
Immediately after the death of King Ferdinand VII on 29 September 1833, Fernando VII , La Monarquía Hispánica, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel Cervantes. Retrieved 30 December 2000. the regent Queen Maria Christina attempted to find a moderate third way between the absolutist Carlists—the followers of the Infante Carlos—and the liberals. This mission was given to First Secretary of State Francisco Cea Bermúdez, leader of a government that lasted only into the following January, having been unable to satisfy either side. Despite his vain efforts to gain the support of either the liberals or the Carlists, his government undertook a major reform of the territorial division of Spain whose effects are felt two centuries later: the division of Spain into provinces. Calle Cea Bermúdez, ABC, 1954-10-06, p. 17. Retrieved 31 December 2009. Carlos Marichal, Spain, 1834–1844: A New Society (1970), Coleccion Tamesis Serie A Monografias, Volume 72, , p. 52 et. seq. This source gives his surnames inconsistently as Cea Bermúdez or Zea Bermúdez; both are apparently in common use.
A royal decree of 20 November 1833 ratified a plan put forth by Javier de Burgos, secretary of state for development (secretario de estado de Fomento), Notes on item 1791: Limpieza de sangre de Francisco Javier de Burgos, Documentación Histórica de Granada, Instituto de Estadística de Andalucía (IEA). Retrieved 30 December 2000. which created the basis for a centralized stateLuis Moreno, Ethnoterritorial Concurrence and Imperfect Federalism in Spain , Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados (CSIC) Working Paper 93-10, p. 12. Retrieved 30 December 2000. divided into 49 provinces. All but four of the provinces received the name of their capital cities; those four—Navarre with its capital at Pamplona, Álava with Vitoria, Gipuzkoa with San Sebastián, and Biscay () with Bilbao—reflected long standing entities, and retained their historic names.Daniele Conversi, The Spanish Federalist Tradition and the 1978 Constitution , p. 12, footnote 64. Retrieved 31 December 2000.
Javier de Burgos's division is practically the same as the short-lived 1822 territorial division of Spain, dating from the "Liberal Trienium" (Trienio Liberal), but without the provinces of Calatayud, Vierzo, and Játiva; also, in contrast to the 1822 division, several provinces were given names other than those of their capitals. Jesús Larios Martín. Dinastías reales de España: Geografía política y eclesiástica (1986), Ediciones Hidalguia. p. 48.
Provincial division and "historic regions"
Javier de Burgos' 1833 provincial division included 49 provinces. The same decree that created the provincial division grouped the provinces into "historic regions". However, these were merely honorary and classificatory: there was no level of administration between the central government and the provinces. These "historic regions" had no powers, no administrative organs, no common jurisdiction over the provinces grouped within them. Mariano González Clavero, Fuerzas políticas en el proceso autonómico de Castilla y León: 1975–1983, 2002 doctoral thesis, University of Valladolid Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, p. 60. Retrieved 30 December 2000, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Each province had a governor (jefe político, "political chief") appointed by the central government.Jefes Políticos y Gobernadores Civiles , Diputación de Albacete. Retrieved 30 December 2000.
+ 1833 historic regions and provincesHistoric regionProvinces Andalusia Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga, Sevilla Aragon Huesca, Teruel, Zaragoza Asturias Oviedo Balearic Islands Palma de Mallorca Canary Islands Santa Cruz de Tenerife (which also included the present-day province of Las Palmas) New Castile Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Madrid, Toledo Old Castile Ávila, Burgos, Logroño, Palencia, Santander, Segovia, Soria, Valladolid Catalonia Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, Tarragona Extremadura Badajoz, Cáceres Galicia A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, PontevedraLeónLeón, Salamanca, ZamoraMurciaAlbacete, MurciaNavarreNavarreValenciaAlicante, Castellón, ValenciaBasque ProvincesÁlava, Gipuzkoa, VizcayaSource: Real Decreto de 30 de noviembre de 1833
Besides looking to the 1822 arrangement, Javier de Burgos took as his model the departments of France. While many of the borders and inclusions in the provinces may at first appear arbitrary from a historical and geographical point of view, he was operating under a set of rational criteria: area (it was intended to be possible to travel between the capital and any point in the province in a single day), population (wherever feasible, the provinces had populations between 100,000 and 400,000), and geographic coherence.
The provincial division restored the traditional names of the Basque provinces and Navarre, which had been renamed in the 1822 territorial division of Spain, but few concessions were made to historic enclaves and exclaves. The most important of these that were retained were the Rincón de Ademuz (part of Valencia, but located between Teruel and Cuenca) and the Treviño enclave (part of Burgos, but surrounded by Álava); another notable exclave is Llívia (part of Gerona, but one must pass through France to reach it).
The provincial division consolidated rapidly and remains with rather few changes down to the present day. Santiago Pastrana, El siglo XIX y la revolución liberal in Páginas didácticas sobre geografía. This is in part because the provincial capitals all became the seats of basic government institutions. The jefes políticos would eventually be replaced by civil governors, and eventually delegates of the central government. The provincial division was followed by all branches of government and formed the basis for all future divisions and combinations. Each of Spain's municipalities (ayuntamientos) falls within a single province.
In 1834, Spain was divided into legal districts (partidos judiciales); these took provincial borders into account. These legal districts later became the basis of electoral districts and tax districts. Civil health districts also followed provincial lines (though military health districts sometimes did not).Francisco Javier Martínez Antonio, Public health and empire in Isabellin Spain (1833–68): the case of military health, História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos, volume 13, number 2, Rio de Janeiro Apr./June 2006, ISSN 0104-5970, , section "The general framework of military public health in the Spanish Empire (1833–1868)". Retrieved 31 December 2009. By 1868 there were 463 legal districts; the number of municipalities has repeatedly risen and fallen.
Conflict with the Basque districts
The new design arranged by Jorge de Burgos and government officials in Madrid opened a scenario of overt confrontation with the Basque territories and institutions, who kept a separate legal and institutional status, including taxation and customs with the Spanish heartland on the Ebro. Navarre was still a semi-autonomous kingdom with its own parliament and government—the Cortes and Diputación—while Álava, Gipuzkoa and Biscay (the Basque Provinces, known also as "Biscay" up to the Peninsular War), were also autonomous. News of the central government's decision overruling native institutions spread to the Basque districts, sparking uproar and anger. The new design thus notably paved the way to the outbreak of the First Carlist War.
While Jorge de Burgos' design of provincial Spain suppressed enclaves, it did keep the ones located in Basque territories—Valle de Villaverde in Biscay, and Treviño in Álava. According to the new arrangement, the Basque enclaves were to be attached to the closer Spanish province of Common Fiscal Regime. That meant they would be paying taxes to Madrid, not to the relevant Basque government (Álava, Biscay). Oñate was incorporated into Guipuzcoa—definitely in 1845. Despite their close ties of cultural, linguistic, institutional, and legal nature (cf. fueros), it was decided to nominally regroup the above districts into two different "historic regions": Provincias Vascongadas and Navarra.
Later modifications As remarked above, the 1833 system of provinces has undergone only minimal changes. Jefes políticos were replaced by civil governors, and eventually by delegates and sub-delegates of the central government. There were a few minor adjustments of borders, and several provinces have been renamed to accord with local languages or in view of other issues of regional identity. The "historic regions" went by the wayside during the Spanish transition to democracy in the later 1970s and early 1980s, when they were replaced by the autonomous communities, many of which coincide precisely with an earlier "historic region". Some authors writing about present-day Spain use the term "historic regions" to refer only to the Basque Country, Catalonia, usually Galicia, and occasionally Andalusia, all of which have historically had the strong local nationalisms.Examples of such usage include Richard Herr in the Epilogue of An Historical Essay on Modern Spain (accessed online 31 December 2009 on The Library of Iberian Resources Online); , permanentrevolution.net, 30 July 2009. Retrieved 31 December 2009;Chapter 3: Building multicultural democracies, in Human Development Report 2004: Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World, United Nations Development Programme, p. 51. Retrieved 31 December 2009.
In 1836 some territory was transferred from Alicante to Valencia, while Villena was transferred from Albacete to Alicante and Sax from Murcia to Alicante. División provincial de Javier de Burgos de 1833, Jarique. Retrieved 31 December 2009. In 1841 a decree was issued returning Logroño to its larger 1822 borders, but it was never put into practice. 1833. Restablecimiento de la provincia de Logroño , bermemar.com. Retrieved 31 December 2009. Between 1844 and 1854 the capital of Gipuzkoa was at Tolosa rather than San Sebastián. Historia , Ayuntamiento de Tolosa / Tolosako Udala official site. Retrieved 31 December 2009. In 1846 the border between Ciudad Real and Albacete was adjusted, with Villarrobledo becoming part of the latter. In 1851 Requena and Utiel were transferred from Cuenca to Valencia. Renfe Ceranías Valencia , Renfe Operadora. Retrieved 31 December 2009.Ignacio Latorre Zacarés, El Archivo Municipal de Requena Abre sus Puertas, on the site of the public library of Requena. 2006, based on internal evidence. Retrieved 31 December 2009.