Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 315 New Administrative Divisions
When the results of the expanded session of the Spanish Parliament were announced by the Parliament, several of the passed issues immediately aroused widespread discussion among all Spaniards.

It is already clear to most Spaniards that several less populous regions will be merged.

With the exception of a small number of Basques, most Spaniards will not oppose the parliament's proposal.

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

Either of these two proposals would be a major change to Spain's existing administrative divisions, let alone the fact that both proposals were passed at the same time.

Originally, the administrative division reform had little impact on most Spaniards, but after the two proposals of the enlarged meeting were passed, the administrative division reform can be said to be closely related to all Spaniards.

The most reluctant one may be the Catalan regional government.

Even with Barcelona, ​​Catalonia has a population of 312 million, ranking third among all regions in Spain.

But if the entire Barcelona is separated, the population of Catalonia will be only 249 million. Although the population of nearly 250 million can still rank third among all Spanish regions, after losing Barcelona's industry, Catalonia's importance among all Spanish regions has been greatly reduced.

In recent years, due to the development of Barcelona's industrial base, a large number of jobs have been created for Catalans, and the living standards of Catalans have been continuously improved, making Catalonia the richest and most developed region in Spain.

Although whether Barcelona is an independent administrative division or not will not change the close distance between Catalonia and Barcelona, ​​after Barcelona becomes an independent administrative division, Barcelona's jobs will definitely not favor Catalans, but will be fairly available to all Spaniards.

In the eyes of the Catalans, they have made great contributions to the construction of Barcelona's industrial base. Why should Barcelona be separated from Catalonia just because of the discussion in the parliament?
This is disrespectful not only to Catalonia, but to all Catalans.

Like the Basques before them, the Catalans are also planning marches, and more violent ones.

They do not oppose the administrative division reform promoted by the government, but reform is one thing, but why do you have to set up Barcelona as a separate administrative division?

In response to possible protests from the Catalans, Carlo decided to take a more extreme approach than he had taken against the Basques.

Because there are not many Basques, the Basque marches and demonstrations can be resolved by eliminating the more extreme leaders.

But for the Catalans, who number more than 200 million, the solution to possible marches and rebellions cannot be achieved by simply killing the ringleaders.

Although Carlo has long since strengthened his control over Catalonia by immigrating some of the more radical Catalans, this does not mean that the remaining Catalans will be able to smoothly integrate into Spain.

Although some progress has been made in assimilating the Catalans, it will still take decades for them to fully recognize themselves as Spanish.

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

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

Once the police discover signs of a march, they must immediately report it to the city government, which will then organize more police to go to the streets where the march is taking place and forcibly expel the marchers.

Of course, Carlo also explicitly prohibited the use of force to suppress the march. Unless it was clear that the person was the leader of the march, the best way for most workers and people who were simply bewitched to participate in the march was to persuade them to give up participating in the march.

If you really don't want to give up participating in the march, then consider using non-lethal weapons such as batons.

In order to avoid large-scale demonstrations as much as possible, Carlo even issued an order to directly link the occurrence of a demonstration with the political achievements of local officials.

Whether a demonstration breaks out or not, and how to properly handle the demonstrators after they break out, is directly related to the performance of local officials in that year.

Performance appraisal is no joke and can even affect the future political careers of these officials.

If Spanish officials do not want to lose their official hats early, they must take Carlo's orders seriously and try their best to prevent the occurrence of demonstrations.

For the Catalonia region, where demonstrations are most likely to break out, Carlo has adopted strict control measures.

Before the parliament announced the results of the meeting, Carlo had already mobilized a large number of police officers from the surrounding regions to Catalonia, especially Barcelona, ​​which was about to be separated to form an independent administrative region, and gathered thousands of police officers to maintain order on the streets.

In order to end the domestic turmoil in Spain as soon as possible, Carlo decided to prioritize the separation of Barcelona from Catalonia, and other administrative divisions could be reformed later.

On March 1885, 3, the Spanish government officially announced the establishment of the Special City of Barcelona, ​​abbreviated as Barcelona City, which is directly under the jurisdiction of the Spanish government.

The city of Barcelona not only includes the original urban area and the surrounding countryside, but also includes the Barcelona Industrial Zone, which is more than ten kilometers away from the urban area.

Of course, the port is also included. The new Barcelona Special City is much larger than the original Barcelona, ​​but smaller than the Barcelona area, covering almost 2000 square kilometers.

The official population of the special city of Barcelona is 63, but if the large number of workers in the industrial base who do not settle in Barcelona are included, the permanent population of Barcelona as a whole has actually exceeded 80.

Although Barcelona is a special city, this so-called city has no difference in administrative level from other regions.

The level of Barcelona City Council is equivalent to that of district governments in other regions, and the level of City Council is equivalent to that of district councils in other regions.

Of course, with the administrative level raised, it will become more difficult for ordinary officials to become mayor of Barcelona.

The position of mayor of Barcelona, ​​like that of mayor of Madrid, will become a priority for political parties under the cabinet.

The special city was established quickly. After all, Barcelona’s city government and city council already existed, and all that needed to be done was to upgrade their levels.

There is no plan to replace the current mayor, Carlo, and he can wait until the next election of the Barcelona City Government. Doing so will also stabilize the order in Barcelona.

After the announcement of the establishment of the special city of Barcelona, ​​Spain also began to reform the political divisions of other regions.

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

As administrative states that make up Spain, each state has the power to handle its own government affairs and enact state laws.

However, the laws of each state must comply with the Spanish Constitution and must not contradict it in any way. Each state assembly has the power to elect the governor and other state government officials, but the governor's appointment must be approved by the lower house and the Spanish government.

This also means that the power of officials in various regions of Spain will be greatly reduced in the future, and the cabinet government's control over various regions will be greatly enhanced. Simply put, this is a means of centralization, transferring more power to the Spanish cabinet government, and the cabinet government also has the ability to supervise the state governments.

In this way, the official performance evaluation system implemented in Spain will become more noticeable.

The cabinet government can even dismiss governors with poor performance evaluations at any time, all it needs is a vote in the House of Commons, without having to consider the attitudes of the state legislatures.

Of course, the attitudes of the state legislatures must be taken into consideration when appointing governors.

The ability to dismiss people alone has increased the cabinet government's control over the regions, and independent kingdoms will no longer emerge in the Spanish states.

Just a few days later, the Spanish cabinet government announced a relatively complete administrative division reform plan.

In this plan, the regions whose land area remains unchanged are: Galicia, Extremadura, Andalucia, Aragon, Madrid, Baleares and Canary Islands.

The regions with changes in land area are: Asturias, Cantabria, Basque Country, Navarra, La Rioja, Catalonia, Valencia, Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha and Murcia.

The specific plan is:

The five less populated states in the north were reduced to two states, Asturias and Cantabria were merged into Asturias. The population after the merger reached just over one million, which made it look like a real administrative state.

The three states of Navarra, Basque Country and La Rioja were merged into the state of Navarra, and the capital of the state is still Pamplona, ​​the original capital of the Navarra region.

In fact, according to convention, the merged state should be named Basque State. After all, the Basque State has the largest land and population among the three states.

Especially in terms of population, the population of the Basque State is larger than the remaining two states combined. Logically, it should be the core area of ​​the new administrative division.

However, considering the impact of continuing the name Basque on the stability of Spain, and the fact that Navarre is also a name with a long history, the new administrative division is still named Navarra.

No matter how unwilling the Basques were, they had to grit their teeth and accept it.

It is worth mentioning that in order to reduce the proportion of Basques in Navarre, Carlo also allocated part of Leon, that is, the land protruding from the eastern part of Leon, to the new Navarre.

This also brings the population of Navarra to over 150 million, of which only about 70 are Basques, less than half.

Since they don't even have half the population, the Basques naturally have no right to ask the government to change the name of the new state to Basque.

In the future, as Navarra develops, the proportion of Basques will become lower and lower, and Spain's control over Navarra will become higher and higher.

In other words, with the changes in administrative divisions, the Basques can no longer control Navarre.

Needless to say, there have been changes in Catalonia. Apart from the loss of Barcelona, ​​there have been no changes in other lands in Catalonia.

Looking further south, Murcia, with a population of only 66, was directly incorporated into Valencia. Valencia also acquired a portion of the protruding land of La Mancha, which brought the population of the new Valencia state infinitely close to the threshold of 300 million, successfully surpassing Catalonia, which lost Barcelona, ​​and Galicia, which did not change at all, to become the third most populous state in Spain.

The reason why Valencia acquired so much land was actually because of Carlo's attention to this area.

The states with a large population in Spain are basically coastal states. Except for Castile and León, which ranks second, which is an inland area, Andalusia, which has the largest population, Valencia, which currently ranks third, Catalonia, which ranks fourth, and Galicia, which ranks fifth, are all coastal areas.

Valencia can be said to be the most important port in Spain on the Mediterranean coast besides Barcelona.

After merging the less-noticed Murcia into Valencia, this region, which has become the third most populous region in Spain, will be able to burst out with greater vitality and its development speed should be much faster.

Along with the announcement of the specific administrative division reform, there is also the new administrative division map of Spain after the administrative division reform.

The biggest difference between Spain's original administrative map and the new administrative map is that several states that were originally larger in area have been reduced in size to varying degrees.

It can be seen at a glance from the new administrative map that the Spanish states are more balanced in area, there are no states with particularly small areas, and the population basically remains above one million.

Of course, administrative divisions like the Balearics, the Canaries, and Madrid and Barcelona are more special.

The first two cannot be expanded because they are archipelagos, while the latter two have separate administrative divisions from cities for various reasons, so their areas are definitely smaller than those of the states.

But apart from these special states, the remaining states are relatively reasonable in terms of population and area, and naturally there will be no waste of political resources.

With the exception of the two archipelagos and special municipalities, all state-level administrative divisions in Spain have a population of over one million, and many have a population of over two million.

Because there is no change in the state of Andalusia, Andalusia is still the most populous region in Spain. With a population of 397 million, no state can catch up with Andalusia.

The only hope is Castile and León, whose population has dropped below 300 million due to the loss of some land and population.

Next down is the newly formed state of Valencia and Catalonia, which lost Barcelona. Both states have a population of just over 250 million.

Although a population of 250 million is indeed not small, compared to Andaman and Lucia's populations of nearly 400 million, it is clear that these two states have lost hope of catching up.

It is worth mentioning that although Andalucia is the most populous region in Spain, it even leads by a huge margin.

But the two most populous cities in Spain are not in Andalucia. Seville, the capital of Andalucia, has a population of just over 20, which is almost one-third of Barcelona and a little more than a quarter of Madrid.

The reason why Andalusia has the largest population in Spain is that it is far away from the Meseta Plateau in Spain and has a large area of ​​plains and hilly areas, which is very suitable for population development.

However, due to the large area of ​​Andalucia, the population distribution is dispersed to a certain extent.

In addition, this is the last unified region in Spain, which has also led to the fact that Seville has never become a large city.

(End of this chapter)