La Franja Totally Explained

Everything about La Franja totally explained

The term La Franja, more properly Franja de Aragón or Franja de Poniente (Western Strip) in Spanish, Franja d'Aragó or Franja de Ponent in Catalan, and Francha d'Aragón or Francha de Lebán (Eastern Strip) in Aragonese is a term that refers to the territory comprising the Catalan-speaking territories of Aragon bordering Catalonia (Spain). Usually La Franja is considered to be comprised by the municipalities of the following comarcas: Ribagorza, La Litera, Bajo Cinca, Bajo Aragon-Caspe, Bajo Aragon and Matarraña.

Origin of the names that refer to La Franja

The use of a term to refer to the eastern area of Aragon bordering Catalonia as based on linguistic criteria is recent. It was in 1929 —when he christened these as Marques de Ponent, "Western Marches"— that Catalan geographer Pau Vila used for the first time a term designating jointly the Aragonese comarcas where Catalan is spoken.
   This term was kept in the second half of the 20th centuries by Catalan philologists such as Joan Coromines, along with other terms such as Marcas de Aragó or Marques d'Aragó ("Marches of Aragon"), Cataluña aragonesa or Catalunya aragonesa ("Aragonese Catalonia") or "la raya de Aragón" or la ratlla d'Aragó ("the Aragonese Strip").
   Whichever term is used, they all refer to the eastern Catalan-speaking area of Aragon, which borders Catalonia to the west. These terms all originated and remain chiefly used in Catalonia, they're therefore Catalonia-centered and hence the Ponent ("Western") reference in the term La Franja del Ponent, because these comarcas lie to the west of Catalonia.
   The term Franja de Ponent itself first appeared in the second half of the 1970s, during the Spanish transition to democracy:
Segon Congrés Internacional de la Llengua Catalana) held in 1985, the normative authority on the Catalan language, known as Institut d'Estudis Catalans, adopted Franja d'Aragó ("Aragonese Strip") as the denomination for the Catalan-speaking territories of Aragon for academic and linguistic purposes, while the denomination Franja de Ponent ("Western Strip") is used mainly in the political arena by some associations, groups and political parties associated with pancatalanism.
   Later on, alternative denominations such as Aragón Oriental (Aragó Oriental), Franja Oriental o Franja de Levante (Franja de Llevant), all meaning roughly Eastern Aragon or Eastern Strip were created in Aragon.

Diverse meanings

While the term originally refers to a linguistic area, it carries several connotations:

The ecclesiastical sense
The linguistic sense
The political sense
The socio-economic sense

The ecclesiastical sense

Origin

The Catholic church authorities, through the Papal Nuncio to Spain, informed on 15 June 1995 the president of the Spanish Bishops' Conference –Archbishop of Zaragoza, Elías Yanes– of the decision of the Holy See to align the diocesan boundaries with the political and historical reality. With the implementation of this decision 111 parishes were transferred from the Diocese of Lleida to the amended Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón. The notification was expressed in the following terms:
medieval artistic objects or sacred art comprised, resulted in an intricated series of lawsuits involving both dioceses (Barbastro-Monzón and Lleida), both autonomous governments (Aragón and Catalonia) and both legal systems canon and administrative law. It was decided by the ecclesiastic canon judges in 2005 that the 113 works of art belong to the Barbastro-Monzón diocese. The Lleida diocese released and statement accepting this decision but, at the same time, announced that then the administrative process would be opened, later on it stated that talks should be opened to explore an agreement, in the end effectively protracting the end of the dispute. In the meantime, the works of art located in the Diocese Museum of Lleida have been retained by the Bishop of Lleida, refusing to transfer them to the collection of the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón. The lawsuit is popularly known as the conflicto de los bienes/patrimonio eclesiástico de la Franja (the conflict of the goods/ecclesiastical heritage of the Franja) or del Aragón Oriental (of Eastern Aragon), and though it began as a local debate, it has become in the last year a national press story, especially due to the confrontation between the political forces of Aragon and Catalonia.

Territorial basis

This case emphasises how the conflict over the churches' treasures has brought a new dimension to the term Franja; the territoriality to which it refers doesn't follow linguistic criteria but lies in the ecclesiastic territorial area based on deaneries, indifferently including monolingual Spanish-speaking and bilingual municipalities, and all being confined to the province of Huesca.
The Deaneries that include the Franja de Aragón in its ecclesiastic sense are:

The Deanery of Bajo Cinca

The Deanery of Cinca Medio

The Deanery of La Litera

The Deanery of Ribagorza Occiental

The Deanery of Ribagorza Oriental

Phase	Nº of parishes	Area (km²)	Population
Septembre 1995	84	2.317,3	37.793
June 1998	27	1.607,7	30.296
Total parishes transferred	111	3.925,0	68.089

The linguistic sense

The Catalan language is spoken by a significant proportion of the population of La Franja— more than 90—the highest proportion of all the territories where it's spoken, despite the fact that it isn't an official language and that it has a very limited presence in education (where it's only possible to study it as an optional subject), in administration and or public acts in general. According to recent studies, La Franja is actually one of the territories with the highest oral usage of Catalan language, but with severe deficiences in writing competences because of its lack of officiality and support in education.

Territorial basis

The exact territorial limits of the Franja de Aragón differ depending on the source, since there are some municipalities of Ribagorza where there are doubts over whether or not to include them as Catalan-speaking or as Aragonese-speaking. The proportion of speakers of the two languages varies over time and with immigration according to the municipality, something which leads to different sources drawing slightly different linguistic borders.

According to the Avant-project of the Language Law

During the fourth session of the Cortes de Aragón (the parliament of Aragon) (1995-1999) under the PP-PAR coalition government the Special Commission Report on the Language Policy of Aragon

was published. The report would be the basis for the Avant-project of the Language Law of Aragon

published the following session (1999-2003) under the PSOE-PAR coalition, where for the first time from the Cortes de Aragón would detail those municipalities which formed part of a Catalan-speaking community, with the aim of recognising co-officiality and encouraging the use of Catalan in public life and especially in education.
The law was never approved due to protests and petitions in Aragon opposed to the co-officiality of Catalan, promoted in the main part by the Federación de Asociaciones Culturales del Aragón Oriental (FACAO), an organisation which maintained that the local 'linguistic modalities' were languages and not dialects of Catalan, and the lack of consensus on the issue among the Aragonese political parties. According to the list of municipalities which could be considered to be areas of predominant use of its own language or linguistic modality or areas of predominant use of normalised Catalan in the Second annex of the Second Final Disposition of the Avant-project of the Language Law, the Franja de Aragón would be composed of:

Municipality	Area (km²)	Population (2006)	Comarca	Province
Aguaviva	42.2	691	Bajo Aragón	Teruel
Albelda	51.9	892	La Litera	Huesca
Alcampell	58.0	827	La Litera	Huesca
Altorricón	32.4	1,469	La Litera	Huesca
Arén	119.3	337	Ribagorza	Huesca
Arens de Lledó	34.3	227	Matarraña	Teruel
Azanuy-Alins	51.2	173	La Litera	Huesca
Baélls	39.8	125	La Litera	Huesca
Baldellou	30.4	115	La Litera	Huesca
Beceite	96.7	598	Matarraña	Teruel
Belmonte de San José	34.0	144	Bajo Aragón	Teruel
Benabarre	157.1	1,160	Ribagorza	Huesca
Bonansa	37.3	101	Ribagorza	Huesca
Calaceite	81.3	1,143	Matarraña	Teruel
Camporrélls	26.7	217	La Litera	Huesca
Castigaleu	26.5	118	Ribagorza	Huesca
Castillonroy	37.6	391	La Litera	Huesca
Cretas	52.7	630	Matarraña	Teruel
Estopiñán del Castillo	88.7	199	Ribagorza	Huesca
Fabara	101.6	1,221	Bajo Aragón-Caspe	Zaragoza
Fayón	67.2	427	Bajo Aragón-Caspe	Zaragoza
Fórnoles	32.6	105	Matarraña	Teruel
Fraga	437.6	13,191	Bajo Cinca	Huesca
Fuentespalda	39.0	347	Matarraña	Teruel
Isábena	118.5	302	Ribagorza	Huesca
La Cañada de Verich	10.9	104	Bajo Aragón	Teruel
La Cerollera	33.7	121	Bajo Aragón	Teruel
La Codoñera	21.0	351	Bajo Aragón	Teruel
La Fresneda	39.5	462	Matarraña	Teruel
La Ginebrosa	80.1	239	Bajo Aragón	Teruel
La Portellada	21.4	274	Matarraña	Teruel
Lascuarre	31.9	147	Ribagorza	Huesca
Laspaúles	81.6	281	Ribagorza	Huesca
Lledó	15.6	181	Matarraña	Teruel
Maella	174.9	2,089	Bajo Aragón-Caspe	Zaragoza
Mazaleón	86.2	589	Matarraña	Teruel
Mequinenza	307.2	2,533	Bajo Cinca	Zaragoza
Monesma y Cajigar	62.6	111	Ribagorza	Huesca
Monroyo	79.2	307	Matarraña	Teruel
Montanuy	174.1	311	Ribagorza	Huesca
Nonaspe	111.4	1,055	Bajo Aragón-Caspe	Zaragoza
Peñarroya de Tastavins	83.3	488	Matarraña	Teruel
Peralta de Calasanz	114.9	261	La Litera	Huesca
Puente de Montañana	48.6	88	Ribagorza	Huesca
Ráfales	35.6	156	Matarraña	Teruel
San Esteban de Litera	71.9	512	La Litera	Huesca
Sopeira	44.1	102	Ribagorza	Huesca
Tamarite de Litera	110.6	3,678	La Litera	Huesca
Tolva	59.0	176	Ribagorza	Huesca
Torre de Arcas	34.3	93	Matarraña	Teruel
Torre del Compte	19.5	168	Matarraña	Teruel
Torre la Ribera	32.1	118	Ribagorza	Huesca
Torrente de Cinca	56.8	1,084	Bajo Cinca	Huesca
Torrevelilla	33.4	204	Bajo Aragón	Teruel
Valdeltormo	16.0	349	Matarraña	Teruel
Valderrobres	124.0	2,142	Matarraña	Teruel
Valjunquera	41.8	414	Matarraña	Teruel
Velilla de Cinca	16.5	469	Bajo Cinca	Huesca
Vencillón	10.4	471	La Litera	Huesca
Veracruz	63.8	111	Ribagorza	Huesca
Viacamp y Litera	107.7	25	Ribagorza	Huesca
Zaidín	92.6	1,822	Bajo Cinca	Huesca
62 municipalities of Aragon	4,442.8	47,236

According to the Institut d'Estudis Catalans

From the point of view of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans the territory is smaller, due to the fact the municipality of Torre la Ribera isn't considered Catalan-speaking, and the municipalities of Azanuy-Alins, Isábena, Lascuarre and San Esteban de Litera are classified as transitional dialects. The Catalan-speaking lands are thus reduced to a total of 57 municipalities with an area of 4,137.2 km² with a population of 45,984.

According to the Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa

The situation is reversed according the Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa

(GEA) with the Franja having an area of 5,370 km² and with a population of 70,000. It should be mentioned that the GEA doesn't recognise the denomination Franja but discusses its situation under Catalan in Aragon, nor does it specify in how many or which municipalities where Catalan is clearly spoken nor the date of the census on which its figures are based.

According to the Gran Geografía Comarcal of the GREC

Municipality/Urban nucleus	Area (km²)	Population (2006)
Benasque	233.6	2,045
Bisaurri	62.9	247
Castejón de Sos	31.8	733
Chía	26.1	113
Güell (1)	28.0	29
Laguarres (2)	33.0	71
Sahún	72.9	331
Sesué	5.2	125
Torres del Obispo (3)	32.0	163
Valle de Lierp	32.8	47
Villanova	6,9	154
8 municipalities and 3 nuclei	565.2	4,058
Franja de Aragon according to the Commission report	4.442,8	47,236
Total 70 municipalities y 3 nuclei according to the GREC	5.008,0	51,294

The Gran Geografía Comarcal of the Grupo Enciclopedia Catalana (GREC)

classes the territorial area of the Franja de Aragon as larger than that defined by the Commission report although not as large as the GEA definition. All the municipalities which it adds to those of the Avant-project and of Ribagorza and therefore belong to the Province of Huesca. It adds a total of 8 municipalities and 3 population nuclei; Güell, Laguarres y Torres del Obispo, which form part of two municipalities; Graus in the case of the first and the third, and Capella the case of the second. The table to the right details the population nuclei and official area and population figures.

(1) Population centres belonging to the municipality of Graus. Population figures according to Ayuntamiento

(no date given), area according to GREC.net.

(2) Population centres belonging to the municipality of Capella. Population 2004, area according to GREC.net.

(3) Population centres belonging to the municipality of Graus. Population according to Ayuntamiento

(no date given), area according to GREC.net.

Comparative table and map according to sources

Source	Nº munici- palities	% of Aragon	Area (km²)	% of Aragon	Population (2006)	% of Aragon
Avant-project of the Language Law	62	8.5	4,442.8	9.3	47,236	3.7
Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC)	57	7.8	4,137.2	8.3	45,984	3.6
Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa (GEA)	?	-	5,370.0	11.3	70,000	5.5
Grupo Enciclopedia Catalana (GREC)	70	9.6	5,008.0	10.5	51,294	4.0
Total Aragon	730	100.0	47,719.2	100.0	1,277,471	100.0

Toponymy

There is no unitary policy on official toponymy in the Franja leading to great variations between the local comarcalización laws in comparrison with those proposed by the IEC. The following table details the translation of the toponymy in Spanish to the official version in the local vernacular and that proposed by the IEC. At the bottom are the municipalities which the GREC includes in its definition of the Franja and the poposed names which it offers opposed to the official names:

Further Information

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