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2/ Catalonia is today the name given to an autonomous region of Spain

Historically, Catalonia's borders extended further. The 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees saw Spain cede "Northern Catalonia" to France

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_the_Pyrenees

3/ The treaty however created some border complexities.

We’re passionate about exclaves here at OpenCage, and Catalonia has one!

The treaty gave all villages north of the Pyrenees to France

But this meant the Catalan "town" of Llíva was not part of the transfer.
Today this Catalan town is completely surrounded by the French “département” of Pyrénées-Orientales

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ll%C3%ADvia

4/ In the interests of brevity and neutrality, we will not explore the entire history of Catalonia or the independence movement in depth.

Here is a summary which brings you up to speed, taking into account the critical Independence vote of 2017.

It's complicated and there are many opinions (many very strongly held)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__mZkioPp3E

5/ Nevertheless, in the interest of #geoweirdness we do need to mention Tabarnia.

This fictional region of Catalonia imagines an area that opposes independence. It is a neologism whose name combines two Catalan provinces, Tarragona and Barcelona. Opponents of independence often use it to highlight the political challenges of the independence movement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabarnia

6/ Many people know about the linguistic situation in Catalonia. It’s one of the purest linguistic examples of diglossia (two dialects or languages are used simultaneously by one community), but there are actually three officially recognised languages in Catalonia.

Catalan, Spanish and Aranese.

Aranese is a dialect of Occitan spoken in the Val d’Aran. It has protected official status, and it is the only area of Occitania where the language is protected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aranese_dialect

7/ Val d'Aran is also interesting because it is the only region of Catalonia in which the water flows to the Atlantic via Toulouse and Bordeaux

https://curiositatcat.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/el-riu-catala-que-desemboca-a-latlantic/

8/ While Aranese is a tiny linguistic island, Catalan is much more widely spoken. It is the official language of Andorra , has official status in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia, and in the city of Alghero on Sardinia, Italy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language

There is an active campaign to have Catalan recognized as the 25th official language of the EU
https://catalaoficial.eu/en/

9/ Best way to practice your geospatial Catalan?

Follow @Raf who posts daily about interesting geospatial stuff in Catalan. Raf is of course a regular Barcelona geomobster

You should also follow the @osmcatala to keep tabs on the OpenStreetMap community in Catalonia

10/ The capital of Catalonia is Barcelona, it is the second largest city in Spain.

Because of its grid system maps of Barcelona typically do NOT have north at the top! Instead maps are aligned so that the city's unique grid system is shown up-down/right-left.

11/ As if that is not confusing enough for the 12 million tourists who visit Barcelona each year (approximately ten times the city's population), residents of the La Salut neighbourhood successfully campaigned to have the 116 bus route removed from Google and Apple Maps to battle overcrowding caused by tourists trying to visit the world-famous Park Güell, designed by legendary architect Antoni Gaudi.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/16/barcelona-bus-route-removed-map-apps-tourist-overcrowding-park-guell

12/ We'll leave our look at Catalan #geoweirdness there, thanks for reading and sharing What did we miss?

We hope you can join us at Geomob Barcelona #geomobbcn in a few weeks.

Until then we have more threads about specific countries, border disputes, geocoding, etc over on our blog: https://blog.opencagedata.com/geothreads

If you enjoyed our look at Catalonia, you may also appreciate our threads about:

Spain https://en.osm.town/@opencage/110564980461467818
and
France https://en.osm.town/@opencage/109930044904649272

Wait! Forgot to post about one of the most delightful #geoweirdness things in Catalonia.

In the Catalan town of Badia del Vallès not far from Barcelona the street layout is actually a map of Iberia

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/41.50838/2.11399

@ColmDonoghue @opencage in fact Val d'Aran is in the north of the Pyrenees.

@JProl @ColmDonoghue it is IN the Pyrenees, not north of them.

@opencage @JProl I thought it meant the watershed, I mean Llivia is *in* the mountains too, it's just south of the skiiing area at Font Romeu

It's peculiar, there's no roadsigns in France with Llivia on it, took me a while to find it when I was there

@cyclotopie yes, correct. good overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT5GpFnRMEQ