Catalonia contains the administrative territorial entity Lleida Province
Late modern history
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Catalonia was severely affected by the Napoleonic Wars. In 1808, it was occupied by French troops; the resistance against the occupation eventually developed into the Peninsular War. The rejection of French dominion was institutionalized with the creation of "juntas" (councils) who, remaining loyal to the Bourbons, exercised the sovereignty and representation of the territory due to the disappearance of the old institutions. Napoleon took direct control of Catalonia to reestablish order, creating the Government of Catalonia under the rule of Marshall Augereau, and making Catalan briefly an official language again. Between 1812 and 1814, Catalonia was annexed to France and organized as four departments. The French troops evacuated Catalan territory at the end of 1814. After the Bourbon restoration in Spain and the death of the absolutist king Ferdinand VII (1833), Carlist Wars erupted against the newly established liberal state of Isabella II. Catalonia was divided, with the coastal and most industrialized areas supporting liberalism, while many inland areas were in the hands of the Carlist faction; the latter proposed to reestablish the institutional systems suppressed by the Nueva Planta decrees in the ancient realms of the Crown of Aragon. The consolidation of the liberal state saw a new territorial division of Spain into provinces, including Catalonia, which was divided into four (Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona).In the second third of the 19th century, Catalonia became an important industrial center, particularly focused on textiles. This process was a consequence of the conditions of proto-industrialization of the prior two centuries in the area and was boosted by, among other factors, national protectionist laws, although the policy of the Spanish government during those times oscillated between free trade and protectionism. During the century, the textile industry flourished in urban areas and in the countryside, usually in the form of company towns. To this day it remains one of the most industrialised areas of Spain. In 1832, the Bonaplata Factory in Barcelona became the first in the country to make use of the steam engine. The first railway on the Iberian Peninsula was built between Barcelona and Mataró in 1848.During those decades, Barcelona was the focus of important revolutionary uprisings known as "bullangues", causing a conflictive relation between many sectors of Catalan society and the central government and, in Catalonia, a republican current began to develop; also, inevitably, many Catalans favored the federalization of Spain. Meanwhile, the Catalan language saw a cultural renaissance from the second third of the century onwards, the Renaixença, among both the working class and the bourgeoisie. Right after the fall of the First Spanish Republic (1873–1874) and the subsequent restoration of the Bourbon dynasty (1874), Catalan nationalism began to be organized politically under the leadership of the republican federalist Valentí Almirall.Provinces
Catalonia is divided administratively into four provinces, the governing body of which is the Provincial Deputation (Catalan: Diputació Provincial, Spanish: Diputación Provincial). The four provinces and their populations are:
Province of Barcelona: 5,701,708 population
Province of Girona: 777,258 population
Province of Lleida: 437,939 population
Province of Tarragona: 830,804 population
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