LLCF Countries

EUSKAL HERRIA
(Basque Country)

Flag courtesy of www.theodora.com/flags  used with permission.

 Image courtesy of www.euskadi.net

          The Basque Homeland covers a surface area of 20,664 square kilometres at the western end of the Pyrenees on the Bay of Biscay. Today it consists of seven herrialdes or districts which, for political and administrative purposes, are part of two different European countries: Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Nafarroa are in Spain, and Lapurdi, Zuberoa and Benafarroa are in France. Three of the Basque Homeland’s seven historic territories, Álava, Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa, in the north of Spain, covering a total surface area of 7,234 square kilometres, are grouped together to form a political unit known as EUSKADI ,or the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. The most outstanding element of the Basque culture is the survival of an ancient language, EUSKERA, throughout the centuries. The origin of euskera is unknown, since it seems to be unrelated to any other language in Europe, and it is believed to be the oldest language in this continent.

          Set in one of the world’s more temperate zones, the Basque Country has a wonderfully mild climate with few extremes of temperature or weather conditions when the seasons change. The climate,  the influence of the sea, and an attractive mixture of villages, mountains, hills and abundant greenery, all make the Basque Country a place of natural surprises.

         A profound respect for traditional values is an essential feature of life in the Basque Country. The Basques have maintained strong links with their immediate environment, the sea and the soil. The two elements have played an important role in shaping the Basque way of life, their distinctive culture and their sports and games.

         The Basque Country has had its own Government and autonomous Parliament since the arrival of democracy in Spain in the late nineteen seventies. Therefore, the Basques virtually govern themselves in sectors like education, health, culture and housing.

STATISTICS

Area: 7,234 square kilometres
Population: 2,098,055 (5.4% of total Spanish population)
Population density: 287 inhabitants per square kilometre
Official languages: Basque and Spanish
Capital cities: Bilbao, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Donostia-San Sebastián
 

HISTORY

         The early history of the Basques remains a subject for speculation, but Roman authors record the presence of the tribe of Vascones in lands corresponding roughly to the province of Navarra. They appear to have resisted the Visigoths, the Franks, the Normans, and, on occasion, the Moors, who occupied the valley of the Ebro. It was the Basques, not the Moors, as the Chanson de Roland relates, who cut the rear guard of Charlemagne's army to pieces at the Battle of Roncesvalles in AD 778. The territories of the Basques had been incorporated into the kingdom of Navarre by the 10th century, and by the end of the political turmoil of the Middle Ages, the provinces of Álava, Vizcaya, and Guipúzcoa had become united with Castile and
Aragon. However, in both Spain and France the Basques retained a large measure of local autonomy and privileges in matters of trade, taxation, and military service. These privileges were incorporated in bodies of traditional Basque law known as the fueros, or fors, which determined the rights of the Basques' popular assemblies and their rules of inheritance. The Basques showed a fierce attachment to their autonomous status, and in Spain the state's attempts to encroach upon their local privileges prompted the Basques in the 1830s to support the cause of Don Carlos, the conservative pretender to the Spanish throne, with disastrous results. They similarly supported the unsuccessful Carlist rebellion of the 1870s, and as a punishment the government finally abolished the fueros, though the Basques managed to retain some degree of local autonomy.

          The advent of the Spanish Republic in 1931 divided the political aspirations of the Basques: Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya, and, to a certain extent, Álava were prepared to work for a status of relative autonomy within the republic, and for this reason they remained loyal to it in spite of its anti-Catholic policy. Navarra, on the other hand, was eager to see the republic overthrown and furnished one of the strong points of the Nationalist rebellion in 1936 and some of its best Carlist troops. The city of Bilbao, which had always been a stronghold of liberalism against the Carlists, became at the same time the centre of republican government and also of Basque nationalism. The fighting lasted until September 1937 and outside Spain is chiefly remembered
for the bombing, supposedly by German aircraft, of Guernica, the traditional assembly place of the province of Vizcaya and a symbol of the Basque nation in Nationalist eyes. After the war, many Basques went into exile as Francisco Franco's government abolished the Basques' special privileges.

          After the death of Franco and especially after the establishment of the liberal Spanish monarchy in 1975, the Basques engaged in vigorous demonstrations for local autonomy, which the Spanish government granted in some measure in 1978-79.

Information courtesy of www.britannica.com

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Universidad del País Vasco

Universidad de Deusto

                  BILBAO - VIZCAYA           SAN SEBASTIÁN - GUIPUZCOA           VITORIA - ÁLAVA