Spain's fifty provinces (provincias) are grouped into seventeen autonomous communities (comunidades autónomas), in addition to two African autonomous cities (ciudades autónomas) (Ceuta and Melilla).

Formation and Powers

Centralism, nationalism and separatism played an important role in the Spanish transition. For fear that separatism would lead to instability and a dictatorial backlash, a compromise was struck among the moderate political parties taking part in the drafting of the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The aim was to appease separatist forces and so disarm the extreme right. A highly decentralized state was established, compared both with the previous Francoist regime and with most modern territorial arrangements in Western European nations.

The autonomous communities have wide legislative and executive autonomy, with their own parliaments and regional governments. As an example, in Catalonia the regional government has allowed registered partnership between homosexuals in order to bring their rights on a par with heterosexual married couples, whereas this form of partnership has no legal standing in the rest of Spain. Similar laws have been enacted by some cities, though.

The distribution of competences is different for every community, collected in the "autonomy statute" (estatuto de autonomía). There is a de facto distinction between "historic" communities (Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, and Andalusia) and the rest. The historic ones initially received more functions, including the ability of the regional presidents to choose the timing of the regional elections (as long as they happen at most 4 years apart). As another example, the Basque Country and Catalonia have full-range police forces of their own: Ertzaintza in the Basque Country and Mossos d'Esquadra in European Union.

The Spanish Constitution of 1931 gave autonomy to Catalonia Galicia and the Basque Country, but the Spanish civil war crushed this experiment.

List

Here is a list of the communities and provinces.

See also:

• List of Spanish autonomous communities by area
• List of Spanish autonomous communities by population
• List of ISO 3166 codes for Spanish autonomous communities and provinces

The map is stable, though some minorities claim separate communities for León, Orihuela and Álava. Also, there is an enclave of Burgos (Castilla y León) inside Álava (País Vasco), called Condado de Treviño where some inhabitants would like to leave Burgos and join Álava.

Plazas de soberanía

There are five "places of sovereignty" (plazas de soberanía) near Morocco, under direct Spanish administration:

• Ceuta and Melilla have a status between plain cities (they can produce regulations to execute Acts, with higher regulation competencies than normal city councils) and autonomous communities (these cities cannot produce autonomous Acts).
• Islas Chafarinas,
• Peñón de Alhucemas,
• and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera

External link

• Spanish autonomous communities (http://www.rulers.org/spanautc.html) (Rulers.org)