Chapter 315: New Administrative Divisions

When the results discussed at the expanded meeting of the Spanish parliament were announced by the parliament, several items that were passed immediately caused widespread discussion among all Spaniards.

Several large regions with relatively small populations would be merged; this was something most Spaniards already knew.

Except for a small number of Basques who would oppose it, most Spaniards would not oppose the parliament's proposal.

But what Spaniards did not expect was that besides the merger and reorganization of administrative divisions, this expanded meeting of the parliament also passed the proposal regarding the reform of large regions into states, and setting up Barcelona as an independent administrative division.

Either one of these two proposals was a huge change for Spain's existing administrative divisions, let alone the fact that two proposals were passed at the same time.

Originally, the reform of administrative divisions did not have a great impact on most Spaniards, but after the two proposals of the expanded meeting were passed, administrative division reform could be said to be closely related to all Spaniards.

The one most unwilling might be the Catalonia large region government.

Under the premise of possessing Barcelona, Catalonia possessed a population as high as 3.12 million, ranking third among all large regions in Spain.

But if the entire Barcelona were separated, the population of the Catalonia large region would only be 2.49 million. Although a population close to 2.5 million could still rank third among all large regions in Spain, after losing the industry of Barcelona, the importance of Catalonia among all large regions in Spain had significantly decreased.

These years, because of the development of the industrial base in Barcelona, Catalans had obtained a large number of jobs. The living standard of Catalans had also continuously improved because of this, making the entire Catalonia the most prosperous and developed region in Spain.

Although whether Barcelona was an independent administrative division or not would not change the distance between Catalonia and Barcelona being close at hand, after Barcelona became an independent administrative division, the jobs in Barcelona would certainly not favor Catalans, but would be fairly oriented toward all Spaniards.

In the eyes of Catalans, they had contributed a lot to the construction of the industrial base in Barcelona. Why, because of the parliament's discussion, should Barcelona be separated from Catalonia?

This was not only a lack of respect for Catalonia but also a lack of respect for all Catalans.

Like the Basques before, Catalans were also planning parades, and they were more intense resistance parades.

They did not oppose the administrative division reform pushed by the government, but you reform is reform; why must Barcelona be set up as an independent administrative division?

Regarding the possible protests of Catalans, Gao Da decided to adopt a more extreme method than dealing with the Basques.

Because there were not many Basques themselves, one only needed to eliminate those relatively extreme leaders to solve the Basque parades and demonstration rebellions.

But for Catalans with a population as high as over 2 million, one could not rely on only punishing the evil leaders to solve the possible parades and rebellions.

Although Gao Da had long strengthened control over Catalonia by immigrating some relatively radical Catalans, this did not mean that the remaining Catalans could successfully integrate into Spain.

Currently, certain results had indeed been achieved in assimilating Catalans, but wanting to make them completely admit that they were Spaniards would still require decades of time.

From the moment the parliament announced the new administrative division reform plan, the major large regions related to the reform entered a state of martial law.

A large number of police entered the city to maintain order, and the municipal government also issued an order prohibiting multiple people from gathering in streets or other public places.

Once the police discovered signs of a parade, they needed to immediately report to the municipal government, and each municipal government would organize more police to go to the streets where the parade was located to forcibly expel the parade crowd.

Of course, Gao Da also explicitly prohibited the act of violently suppressing parades. Unless it was clearly the leaders organizing the parade, for most workers and people who were just bewitched to participate in the parade, the best way was still to persuade them with good words and let them voluntarily give up participating in the parade.

If they really were unwilling to give up participating in the parade, then consider using non-lethal weapons like police batons.

In order to avoid the occurrence of large-scale parades as much as possible, Gao Da even issued an order to link the occurrence of parades with the political performance of local officials.

Whether a parade broke out or not, and how to reasonably handle the parade crowd after the parade broke out, was directly related to the results of local officials that year.

Political performance assessment was not a joke, and it could even affect the future political careers of these officials.

If they did not want to lose their official hats early, Spanish officials had to attach importance to Gao Da's orders and prevent the occurrence of parades as much as possible.

Regarding the Catalonia large region where parades were most likely to break out, Gao Da adopted a method of strict control.

Before the parliament announced the discussion results of the meeting, Gao Da had already mobilized a large number of police from surrounding large regions to go to Catalonia, especially Barcelona, which was about to be separated to establish an independent administrative region, where over a thousand police gathered to maintain order in the streets.

In order to end the turmoil in Spain as soon as possible, Gao Da decided to prioritize pushing for Barcelona to separate from the Catalonia large region, and other administrative divisions could be reformed later.

On March 20, 1885, the Spanish government officially issued an announcement to establish the Barcelona Special City, abbreviated as Barcelona City, directly under the jurisdiction of the Spanish government.

Barcelona City not only included the original urban area and the villages in the suburbs but also included the Barcelona industrial zone a dozen kilometers away from the urban area.

Of course, the port was also included. The new Barcelona Special City was much larger than the original Barcelona, but the area was smaller than the Barcelona region, about 2,000-plus square kilometers.

The Barcelona Special City on the surface possessed a population of 630,000, but if one counted the workers in the industrial base who had not settled in Barcelona, the actual resident population of the entire Barcelona had already exceeded 800,000.

Although Barcelona was a special city, this so-called city was no different from other large regions in terms of administrative level.

The level of the Barcelona municipal government was equivalent to the district government of other large regions, and the level of the municipal council was equivalent to the district council of other large regions.

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

The position of mayor of Barcelona would become a target for various political parties to compete for under the Cabinet, just like the mayor of Ma Deli.

The formation of the special city was fast; after all, Barcelona's municipal government and municipal council were ready-made, and one only needed to raise their level.

Gao Da did not intend to replace the current mayor's candidate; wait until the next election of the Barcelona municipal government to replace it, and doing so could also stabilize the order of Barcelona.

After the Barcelona Special City was announced to be established, Spain also immediately began the political division reform of other large regions.

First was renaming all large regions to states, large region governments to state governments, and large region councils to state councils.

As administrative states that made up Spain, each state possessed the power to handle its own government affairs and promulgate laws for each state.

But the laws of each state must abide by the Spanish Constitution and must not have any violation of the Spanish Constitution. Each state council had the power to elect the governor and other officials of the state government, but the appointment of the governor must be approved by the Lower House and the Spanish government.

This also meant that the power of officials in various regions of Spain in the future would usher in a significant reduction, and the Cabinet government's control over various regional governments would significantly increase.

Simply put, this was a means of centralization, transferring more power to Spain's Cabinet government, and the Cabinet government also had the ability to supervise the governments of various states.

In this way, the official political performance assessment system implemented by Spain would also become more eye-catching.

The Cabinet government could even dismiss governors with relatively poor assessments at any time, only needing to pass the vote of the Lower House, without considering the attitude of each state council at all.

Of course, in the appointment of governors, one still had to consider the attitude of each state council.

It was just that the ability to dismiss alone increased the Cabinet government's control over various regions, and there would no longer be the emergence of independent kingdoms in various states of Spain.

Not a few days later, the Spanish Cabinet government announced a relatively complete administrative division reform plan.

In this plan, the regions where the land area did not change were: Galicia, Extremadura, Andalusia, Aragon, Ma Deli, Balearic, and Canary.

The regions where the land area changed were: Asturias, Cantabria, Basque, Navarre, La Rioja, Catalonia, Valencia, Castile-Leon, Castile-La Mancha, and Murcia.

The specific plan was:

The five states in the north with relatively small populations were reduced to two states; Asturias and Cantabria were merged into the Asturias state, and the population after the merger reached a little over 1 million, which could be considered to truly have the appearance of an administrative state.

Navarre, Basque, and La Rioja—these three states were merged into the Navarre state, and the capital of the state was still the capital of the original Navarre large region, Pamplona.

Actually, according to convention, the merged state should be named the Basque State, after all, the land and population of the Basque State were among the best among these three states.

Especially the population; the population of the Basque State was more than the population of the remaining two states combined, so logically it should be the core area of the new administrative division.

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

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

It is worth mentioning that in order to reduce the proportion of Basques in the Navarre State, Gao Da also divided a part that originally belonged to Leon, which was the piece of land that protruded from the eastern part of Leon State, to the new Navarre State.

This also made the population of the Navarre State exceed 1.5 million, of which only about 700,000 were Basques, not even half the proportion.

Since there were not even half the people, the Basques naturally had no power to demand the government to change the name of the new state to Basque.

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

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

The changes in Catalonia naturally need not be mentioned; apart from losing Barcelona, the other lands of Catalonia did not have any changes.

Looking further south, the Murcia State, which had a population of only 660,000, was directly merged into the Valencia State. The Valencia State also obtained a part of the protruding land of La Mancha, which also made the population of the new Valencia State infinitely approach the threshold of 3 million, successfully surpassing Catalonia, which lost Barcelona, and Galicia, which had no changes, to become the state with the third largest population in Spain.

The reason why Valencia obtained so much land was actually because of Gao Da's emphasis on this region.

States with larger populations in Spain were basically coastal states. Except for the second-ranked Castile-Leon State, 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 in Spain on the Mediterranean coast, apart from Barcelona.

After merging Murcia, which had little presence, into Valencia, this region, which suddenly became the third most populous region in Spain, could burst out with greater vitality, and the development speed should also be much faster.

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

If one were to talk about the biggest difference between Spain's original administrative division map and the new administrative division map, it was that several states with relatively large areas originally had some reductions to a greater or lesser extent.

The new administrative division map could be seen at a glance that the states of Spain were more balanced in area, there were no states with particularly small areas, and the population was basically maintained at over one million.

Of course, administrative divisions like the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, as well as Ma Deli and Barcelona were relatively special.

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

But apart from these relatively special existences, the remaining states were relatively reasonable in both population and area, and naturally there would not be the phenomenon of wasting political resources.

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

Because the Andalusia State had no changes, Andalusia remained the most populous region in Spain. Judging from the population of Andalusia, which reached as high as 3.97 million, currently no state could launch a chase against Andalusia.

The only hopeful one, Castile-Leon, because of the loss of a part of land and population, had seen its population drop to below 3 million.

Further down were the newly established Valencia State and the Catalonia State that lost Barcelona; the populations of these two states were both just over 2.5 million.

Although a population of 2.5 million was indeed not small, compared to Andalusia's population of nearly 4 million, it was clear that these two states had lost the hope of catching up.

It is worth mentioning that although Andalusia was the most populous region in Spain, and even reached a gap-like lead.

But the top two cities in Spain by population were not in Andalusia; the capital of Andalusia, Seville, only had a population of 200,000, which was about one-third of Barcelona and a little more than one-fourth of Ma Deli.

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

However, because Andalusia had a larger area, it dispersed the layout of the population 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 had the emergence of a large city.

(End of this chapter)