page_title: Catalonia
section_title: Hydrography
hierarchical_section_title: Catalonia / Geography / Hydrography
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Felsküste bei Tossa de Mar (Katalonien/Spanien) Datum: 17.09.2011 Urheber: M. Pfeiffer alias Benutzer:Gordito1869 Quelle: Privates Fotoarchiv des Urhebers
context_page_description: Catalonia is an autonomous community on the northeastern corner of Spain, designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy.
  Catalonia consists of four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. The capital and largest city is Barcelona, the second-most populated municipality in Spain and the core of the fifth-most populous urban area in the European Union. It comprises most of the territory of the former Principality of Catalonia. It is bordered by France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, and the Spanish autonomous communities of Aragon to the west and Valencia to the south. The official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan.
  In the late 8th century, various counties were established by the Frankish kingdom across and near the eastern Pyrenees as a defensive barrier against Muslim invasions. The eastern counties were united under the rule of the Frankish vassal, the count of Barcelona. In the 10th century the County of Barcelona became progressively independent. In 1137, Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon were united by marriage under the Crown of Aragon.
context_section_description: Most of Catalonia belongs to the Mediterranean Basin. The Catalan hydrographic network consists of two important basins, the one of the Ebro and the one that comprises the internal basins of Catalonia (respectively covering 46.84% and 51.43% of the territory), all of them flow to the Mediterranean. Furthermore, there is the Garona river basin that flows to the Atlantic Ocean, but it only covers 1.73% of the Catalan territory.
  The hydrographic network can be divided in two sectors, an occidental slope or Ebro river slope and one oriental slope constituted by minor rivers that flow to the Mediterranean along the Catalan coast. The first slope provides an average of 18,700 cubic hectometres (4.5 cubic miles) per year, while the second only provides an average of 2,020 hm³ (0.48 cu mi)/year. The difference is due to the big contribution of the Ebro river, from which the Segre is an important tributary. Moreover, in Catalonia there is a relative wealth of groundwaters, although there is inequality between comarques, given the complex geological structure of the territory. In the Pyrenees there are many small lakes, remnants of the ice age. The biggest are the lake of Banyoles and the recently recovered lake of Ivars.
  The Catalan coast is almost rectilinear, with a length of 580 kilometres (360 mi) and few landforms—the most relevant are the Cap de Creus and the Gulf of Roses to the north and the Ebro Delta to the south. The Catalan Coastal Range hugs the coastline, and it is split into two segments, one between L'Estartit and the town of Blanes (the Costa Brava), and the other at the south, at the Costes del Garraf.
  The principal rivers in Catalonia are the Ter, Llobregat, and the Ebro (Catalan: Ebre), all of which run into the Mediterranean.
caption: Tossa de Mar, Costa Brava
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