Chapter 315: New Administrative Divisions

After the results of the expanded Spanish Parliament meeting were announced, several passed proposals immediately sparked widespread discussion among all Spaniards.

It was already clear to most Spaniards that several regions with smaller populations would be merged.

Aside from a small number of Basques who would object, most Spaniards did not oppose the parliament's proposal.

However, what the Spaniards did not expect was that, in addition to the merger and reorganization of administrative divisions, this expanded meeting also passed a proposal to reform regions into states and to establish Barcelona as a separate administrative division.

Either one of these two proposals would have been a massive change to Spain's existing administrative divisions, let alone having both passed at the same time.

Originally, administrative reform did not have much impact on most Spaniards, but after the two proposals from the expanded meeting were passed, administrative reform could be said to be closely related to every Spaniard.

Among them, the one least willing to accept this was likely the Catalonia regional government.

With Barcelona included, Catalonia had a population as high as 3. 2 million, ranking third among all Spanish regions.

But if the entire city of Barcelona were to be separated, the population of the Catalonia region would drop to only 2. 9 million. Although a population of nearly 2. million would still rank third among all Spanish regions, the loss of Barcelona's industry would significantly diminish Catalonia's importance among all Spanish regions.

Over the years, the development of the Barcelona industrial base had provided Catalans with a large number of jobs. The living standards of Catalans had risen continuously as a result, making the entire Catalonia the most affluent and developed region in Spain.

Although whether Barcelona was an independent administrative division or not would not change the fact that Catalonia and Barcelona were in close proximity, once Barcelona became an independent administrative division, its jobs would certainly not favor Catalans, but would be fairly open to all Spaniards.

In the eyes of the Catalans, they had contributed greatly to the construction of the Barcelona industrial base. Why should Barcelona be separated from Catalonia just because of a parliamentary discussion?

This was not only a sign of disrespect toward Catalonia, but also a sign of disrespect toward all Catalans.

Like the Basques before them, the Catalans were also planning protests, and these were even more intense, rebellious protests.

They did not oppose the administrative reform pushed by the government, but reform is one thing—why did Barcelona have to be set up as a separate administrative division?

Regarding the potential protests by Catalans, Carlo decided to adopt more extreme methods than those used against the Basques.

Because the Basque population itself was not large, it was only necessary to eliminate those more extreme ringleaders to resolve the Basque protests and demonstrations.

But for the Catalans, whose population reached over 2 million, it was impossible to resolve potential protests and rebellions by simply punishing the ringleaders.

Although Carlo had long since strengthened control over Catalonia by migrating some of the more radical Catalans, this did not mean that the remaining Catalans could smoothly integrate into Spain.

Currently, some results had indeed been achieved in assimilating the Catalans, but it would still take decades for them to fully acknowledge themselves as Spaniards.

From the moment the government announced the new administrative reform plan, the major regions involved in the reform entered a state of martial law.

A large number of police entered the cities to maintain order, and the municipal governments issued orders prohibiting large gatherings in streets or other public places.

Once the police detected signs of a protest, they were required to report it to the municipal government immediately, so that the municipal governments could organize more police to go to the streets where the protest was occurring and forcibly disperse the crowd.

Of course, Carlo also explicitly prohibited the use of force to suppress protests. Unless they were clearly the ringleaders organizing the protest, the best method for the majority of workers and citizens who were merely incited to participate was to use persuasive words to convince them to voluntarily give up participating in the protest.

If they were truly unwilling to give up participating in the protest, then the use of non-lethal weapons like batons could be considered.

To avoid large-scale protests as much as possible, Carlo even issued an order linking the occurrence of protests directly to the performance evaluations of local officials.

Whether a protest broke out, and how the protesting crowds were reasonably handled after a protest broke out, directly concerned the local officials' performance for that year.

Performance evaluation was no joke; it could even affect these officials' future political careers.

If they did not want to lose their official hats early, Spanish officials had to take Carlo's orders seriously and prevent protests from occurring as much as possible.

For the Catalonia region, where protests were most likely to break out, Carlo adopted even stricter control measures.

Before the parliament announced the results of the meeting, Carlo had already mobilized a large number of police from surrounding regions to Catalonia, especially to Barcelona, which was about to be separated to form a separate administrative district, where over a thousand police officers were gathered to maintain order in the streets.

To end the domestic unrest in Spain as soon as possible, Carlo decided to prioritize the separation of Barcelona from the Catalonia region; other administrative divisions could be reformed later.

On March 20, 1885, the Spanish government officially issued a public announcement regarding the establishment of the Barcelona Special City, abbreviated as Barcelona City, which would be directly under the jurisdiction of the Spanish government.

The Barcelona City included not only the original urban area and the surrounding countryside, but also the Barcelona industrial zone located over ten kilometers away from the city.

Of course, the port was also included. The new Barcelona Special City was much larger than the original Barcelona, but smaller than the Barcelona region, covering about 2, 00 square kilometers.

On the surface, the Barcelona Special City had a population of 630, 00, but if one counted the large number of workers in the industrial base who were not settled in Barcelona, the actual permanent population of the entire Barcelona had already exceeded 800, 00.

Although Barcelona was a special city, this so-called city had no difference in administrative rank from other regions.

The rank of the Barcelona municipal government was equivalent to the regional government of other regions, and the rank of the city council was equivalent to the regional council of other regions.

Of course, after the administrative rank was raised, it would become more difficult for ordinary officials to serve as the mayor of Barcelona.

The position of mayor of Barcelona would, like the mayor of Madrid, become a priority target for various political parties to compete for under the cabinet.

The formation of the special city was quick; after all, the Barcelona municipal government and city council were already in place, and only their ranks needed to be raised.

Carlo did not intend to replace the incumbent mayor either; waiting until the next election of the Barcelona municipal government to make a change would suffice, as doing so could keep the order in Barcelona stable.

After the establishment of the Barcelona Special City was announced, Spain immediately began political division reforms for other regions.

First, all regions were renamed as states, regional governments were renamed as state governments, and regional councils were renamed as state councils.

As administrative states composing Spain, each state possessed the power to handle its own government affairs and enact state laws.

However, the laws of each state had to comply with the Spanish Constitution and could not contradict it in any way. Each state council had the power to elect a governor and other state government officials, but the appointment of the governor had to be approved by the lower house and the Spanish government.

This also meant that the power of local officials across Spain would face a significant reduction in the future, and the cabinet government's control over various localities would be significantly enhanced.

Simply put, this was a means of centralization, transferring more power to the Spanish cabinet government, which also gained the ability to supervise various state governments.

In this way, the official performance evaluation system implemented by Spain would also become more prominent.

The cabinet government could even dismiss poorly performing governors at any time, requiring only a vote by the lower house, without needing to consider the attitude of each state council.

Of course, the attitude of the state councils still had to be considered in the appointment of governors.

However, the mere power of dismissal increased the cabinet government's control over various regions, and there would no longer be any independent kingdoms within the various states of Spain.

A few days later, the Spanish cabinet government announced a more complete administrative reform plan.

In this plan, the regions whose land area remained unchanged were: Galicia, Extremadura, Andalusia, Aragon, Madrid, the Balearic Islands, and the Canary Islands.

Those whose land area changed were: Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country, Navarre, La Rioja, Catalonia, Valencia, Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, and Murcia.

The specific plan was as follows:

The five states in the north with smaller populations were reduced to two states; Asturias and Cantabria were merged into the state of Asturias, and the merged population reached just over 1 million, which could be considered a true administrative state.

The three states of Navarre, the Basque Country, and La Rioja were merged into the state of Navarre, and the capital of the state remained Pamplona, the capital of the original Navarre region.

In fact, according to custom, the merged state should have been named the Basque State, as the land and population of the Basque Country were among the best of these three states.

Especially in terms of population, the population of the Basque Country was more than the remaining two states combined, so it should logically have been the core area of the new administrative division.

But considering the impact that continuing the name "Basque" would have on Spain's stability, and given that Navarre was also a name with a long history, the new administrative division was still named the state of Navarre.

Even if the Basques were unwilling, they could only grit their teeth and accept it.

It is worth mentioning that to reduce the proportion of Basques in the state of Navarre, Carlo also gave a part of the land that originally belonged to León—specifically the piece that protruded to the east of the state of León—to the new state of Navarre.

This also brought the population of the state of Navarre to over 1. million, of which only about 700, 00 were Basques, less than half the proportion.

Since they did not even make up half the population, the Basques naturally had no power to demand that the government change the name of the new state to Basque.

In the future, with the development of the state of Navarre, the proportion of Basques would become lower and lower, and Spain's control over the state of Navarre would become higher and higher.

In other words, with the change in administrative divisions, the Basques could no longer form control over Navarre.

The changes in Catalonia naturally go without saying; apart from losing Barcelona, the other lands of Catalonia did not have any changes.

Looking further south, the state of Murcia, with a population of only 660, 00, was directly merged into the state of Valencia. The state of Valencia also gained a piece of land protruding from La Mancha, which brought the population of the new state of Valencia infinitely close to the 3-million threshold, successfully surpassing Catalonia, which lost Barcelona, and Galicia, which had no changes, to become the third most populous state in Spain.

The reason why Valencia gained so much land was actually because of Carlo's emphasis on this region.

States with larger populations in Spain were basically coastal states. Except for the second-ranked state of Castile and León, which was an inland region, the most populous Andalusia, the currently third-most populous Valencia, the fourth-most populous Catalonia, and the fifth-most populous Galicia were all coastal regions.

Valencia could be said to be the most important port for Spain on the Mediterranean coast, besides Barcelona.

After merging Murcia, which had little presence, into Valencia, this region leapt to become the third most populous in Spain, capable of bursting with greater vitality, and its development speed should also be much faster.

Released along with the announcement of the specific administrative reform was the new administrative map of Spain after the reform.

If one were to talk about the biggest difference between Spain's original administrative map and the new one, it was that several states that originally had larger areas had all been reduced to some extent.

At a glance, the new administrative map showed that the states of Spain were more balanced in area, with no states of particularly small size appearing, and the population was basically maintained at over one million.

Of course, administrative divisions like the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, as well as Madrid and Barcelona were quite special.

The former two could not increase their area because they were archipelagos. The latter two were established as separate administrative divisions from cities for various reasons, so their areas were certainly relatively small compared to those states.

But except for these special existences, the remaining states were quite reasonable in both population and area, and naturally, there would be no phenomenon of wasting political resources.

Except for the two archipelagos and the special city, the population of all state-level administrative divisions in Spain was over one million, and many states had populations reaching the 2-million level.

Because the state of Andalusia had no changes, it remained the most populous region in Spain. With a population as high as 3. 7 million, no state could currently challenge Andalusia.

The only hopeful one, Castile and León, had seen its population drop below 3 million due to the loss of some land and population.

Further down were the newly established state of Valencia and the state of Catalonia, which lost Barcelona; the populations of these two states were both just over 2. million.

Although a population of 2. million was indeed not small, compared to Andalusia's population of nearly 4 million, it was clear that these two states had lost hope of catching up.

It is worth mentioning that although Andalusia was the most populous region in Spain, even reaching a gap-style lead,

the top two cities in Spain by population were not in Andalusia; the capital of Andalusia, Seville, had a population of only 200, 00-plus, which was about one-third of Barcelona's and a little over one-fourth of Madrid's.

The reason why Andalusia's population ranked first in all of Spain was that it was far from Spain's Meseta Plateau and had plains and hilly areas of considerable size, which were very suitable for population development.

However, because of Andalusia's large area, the layout of the population was dispersed to a certain extent.

Coupled with the fact that this was the last region of Spain to be unified, this also led to the fact that Seville had never produced a large city.

(End of chapter)