Set up as an Autonomous Community by Organic Law 4, 1979, December 18th, B.O.E. 22.12.79.

In the course of its history, Catalonia has undergone many invasions which have left a deep mark on its land and people. The coming of several different peoples, of whom the Iberians and the Celts were the most representative, formed the bedrock of its history.

Gree colonization gave way to that of Rome, which was longer lasting, extending over six centuries and laying the cultural foundations of the future Catalonia. The Visigoth and Arab invasions, on the other hand, were not so important in its formation, although the conflicts between Franks and Muslims led to the emergence of a feeling of being a distinct people. The emperor Charlemagne established in Catalonia the Spanish Mark for the defence of the Empire and it was at this time that the special features of this region made their appearance. The union of the various counties of Barcelona prefigured, though in no very definite way, what the new cultural and political community would become.

After the year 986, when the French kings no longer lent their supported against the Muslims attacks, Catalonia assumed its own identity and asserted its independence from France.

One figure stands out among the hosts of petty feudal lords, that of Ramon Berenguer IV who, by marrying the heir to the Throne of the Kingdom of Aragon, united the two regions under the same sceptre. This never implied a political union, because the two peoples continued to have their own institutions and their own language. The link was the person of a sovereign himself, who was the king in Aragon and the Count of Barcelona in Catalonia. However, the union was one of the reasons why Catalonia gradually abandoned its trans Pyrenean policies and moved towards the orther peoples of the Iberain peninsula.

The subsequent history of Catalonia is, therefore, linked to that of Aragong and, since the time of the union of Aragon and Castile, to the history of Spain.