Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/320

 298 SPAIN [STATISTICS. Before 1833 the mainland was divided into thirteen provinces, also enumerated below, which took their names from the ancient kingdoms and principalities out of which the modern kingdom was gradually built up. The present provinces are subdivided into judicial districts (partidos judiciales) and communes (ayuntamientos). It is probable that the population of Spain attained its highest development during the period of the early Roman empire, when it has been estimated, though of course on imperfect data, to have numbered forty or fifty millions. The best evidence of a dense population in those days is that afforded by the specific estimates of ancient writers for some of the larger cities. The population of Tarraco (Tarragona) was estimated at 2 millions, and that of Nova Carthago (Cartagena), Italica (Sevilla la Vieja), and others at several hundreds of thousands. Emerita Augusta (Merida) had a Roman garrison of 90,000 men, which also implies a large population. 1 Table II. Area and Population of the Former and Present Provinces. Provinces. Area in Square Miles. Population 18.57. Population Dec. 31, 1877. Increase or Decrease. Pop. per sq. m. 1877. XEW CASTILE 28,018 2,997 4,S69 5,386 6,726 7,840 25.409 5,651 1,945 2,112 2,982 2,714 3,836 3,126 3,043 4,091 4,091 15,242 4,940 4,135 6,167 16,702 8,688 8,014 11,343 3,078 3,787 2,739 1,739 33,926 3,302 4,937 2,824 5,300 5,184 2,828 5,429 4,122 8,897 2,446 4,353 2,098 10,449 5,972 4,477 12,483 4,775 2,272 2,985 2,451 17,979 5,878 6,607 5,494 4,046 4,046 2,782 849 728 1,205 1,860 2,944 1,477,915 475. 7S.-, 199.0S8 328,755 239,968 244,328 1,609,943 333.356 173,812 2)4,441 164,089 146,839 147,468 185,970 244,023 524,529 524,529 861,434 263,516 249.162 348,756 707,115 404,981 302,134 1,776,879 551,689 424,186 371,818 428,886 2,937,183 315,6<!4 444,629 451,406 351.S36 345,879 390,192 463,486 174,391 1,246,435 260,919 606,608 378,958 582,087 201,118 380,969 1,652,291 306,994 310,970 713.734 320,593 880,643 257,839 384,176 238,628 297,422 297,422 413,470 164,579 U8.4M 96,398 262,893 234,046 1,627,131 594.194 901,288 335.038 236.253 200,358 1,654,718 332.625 1 74,425 285,289 180,486 150.052 158,653 180,771 247,458 576,352 576,352 885,625 285.695 249,720 350,210 739,403 432,809 306,594 1,848,027 596,436 410,810 388,835 451,946 3,283,436 349.076 479,066 500,322 385,482 423,025 42'.),-_>06 506,812 210,447 1,374,592 283.981 <;7!>,046 411,565 670,669 210,058 451,611 1,752,033 285,339 299,702 836,887 330,105 894.991 252.239 400,587 242,165 304,184 304,184 450.699 189.954 167,207 93,538 289,035 280,974 + 10-1 + 24-8 + I'l + 1-8 + 3-3 + 6-6 + 2-8 0-2 + 0-4 + 9-7 + 10-0 + 2-1 + 4-2 - 2-8 + 1-4 + 9'9 + 9-9 + 3-6 + 8'3 + 0-2 + 0-4 + 4-6 + 6-9 + 1-5 + 4-0 + 8-0 3.3 58 198 41 60 34 33 65 59 89 111 60 55 40 58 80 140 140 57 58 60 57 44 50 38 163 193 110 142 260 94 106 96 177 73 82 152 93 51 154 116 156 194 64 36 101 140 r.o 131 280 138 50 44 CO 44 75 75 162 224 229 78 155 95 Madrid Toledo Cuenca Ciudad Real OLD CASTILE Burgos Sanfcmder. Aviln Segovia Soria Valladolid ASTDRIAS Oviedo LEOV Salamanca Leon ESTREMADURA Badiijoz Caceres GALICIA Orense + 4-6 + 5-4 + 11-7 + 10-8 + 7-5 + 10-8 + 97 + 22-3 + 10-2 + 9-3 + 20-8 + 10-1 + 8-8 + 11-9 + 8-6 + 15-2 + 8-9 + 18-5 + 5-9 - 7-6 - 39 + 17-2 + 3-0 + 1-6 2'2 Pontevedra ANDALUSIA Malaga jaen Cadiz (with Ceuta)... Seville Huelva VALENCIA Castellon delaPlana Valencia. MURCIA Albacete Murcia CATALONIi Lerida Gerona Barcelona Tarragona. VRAGON Huesca Saragossa + 4-2 + 1-5 + 2'3 + 2-3 + 8'9 + 18-3 + 6-8 3'1 Teruel NAVAUUA Navarru, BASQUE PROVINCES Vizcaya (Biscay) Guipuzcoa Balearic Islands Canary Islands + 9-9 + 19-9 Total 196,171 ca (exclusiv 15,464,340 e of Ceuta)... 16,631,869 2,476 + 7'5 85 Presidios of North Afri 16,634,345 1 Garrido, La Espana Contemporanea, i. 489. The first Spanish census was made in 1594, but some of the provinces now included in the kingdom were for one reason or another not embraced in the enumeration, so that the total popula- tion assigned to Spain within its present limits for that date is obtained by adding the results of enumerations at different dates in the provinces then excluded. The total thus arrived at is 8,206,791. No other census took place till 1787, when the total was found to be 10,268,150; and this census was followed by another in 1797, when the population was returned as 10,541,221. Various estimates were made within the next sixty years, but the census of 1857 proved that some of these estimates must have been greatly below the truth. The total population then ascertained to exist in Spain was 15,464,340, an increase of not much less than 50 per cent, since the census of 1797. The last census took place on December 31, 1877, and the total population then ascertained, 16,631,869, shows an increase of only 1 per cent., equal to an annual increase at the rate of 0'35 per cent. lower than in any other country in Europe except France. As Table II. shows, the density of population in Spain as a whole is little more than that of the most thinly peopled county of England in 1881 (Westmoreland, 82 to the square mile). Looking at the old provinces, we find that the most thickly peopled are all maritime, and that all the maritime provinces except Andalusia and Murcia have a density exceeding 100 to the square mile. The most densely peopled province of all is not Catalonia, in which manufacturing industries are so highly de- veloped, nor the Basque Provinces with their great iron industry, but Galicia, where there are neither manufactures nor minerals to speak of, but where tillage occupies a relatively larger area than anywhere else in Spain. Of the modern provinces the most thinly peopled are Cuenca and Ciudad Real, in the barren region of the east and south of New Castile, and Albacete in the Murcian steppe, in each case the density being less than half of that of the most thinly peopled English county. The column indicating the increase (or decrease) per cent, of the population between 1857 and 1877 shows that, outside of the province in which the capital is situated, the increase points chiefly to the recent development of manu- factures and mining, to the development of copper mines in Huelva, lead mines in Jaen, iron mines in Vizcaya, cotton manu- factures in Barcelona. In Murcia it points no doubt to the great development of the trade in esparto as well as in southern fruits. On the other hand the decrease in Lerida and Gerona indicates how the attraction of higher wages in the manufacturing districts of Catalonia tends to deplete the neighbouring country districts. As regards the distribution of population between town and country, Spain contrasts in a marked manner with Italy, Spain having but few large towns and a relatively large country popula- tion. In 1877 there were only five towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants : Madrid (397,816), Barcelona (248,943), Valencia (143,861), Seville (134,318), and Malaga (115,882). Only nine had a population between 50,000 and 100,000, and besides these only 171 had a population above 10,000. The birth-rate in Spain is 33 '9 per thousand as against 35*1 in England and Wales, the death-rate 291 (21 '4 in England and Wales); the number of marriages per thousand inhabitants was 7 '32 2 (8 '08 in England and Wales). The percentage of illegitimacy is 5 "6. The number of males born for every 100 females averages 107, a higher proportion than in any other country of Europe for which statistics are obtainable except Greece (112) and Roumania (111). Foreign Possessions. The population of the principal foreign Foreign possessions of Spain in 1877 numbered 7,822,123, made up as posses- follows : sions. Cuba 1,521,684 Porto Rico 731,648 Philippine Islands 5,567,685 Fernando Po 1,106 Besides the Philippine Islands in the Eastern Archipelago, Spain possesses the greater part of the Sulu Archipelago, and, in the Pacific, the Marianne, Pelew, and Caroline Islands. Off the Guinea coast she possesses the Island of Annobon as well as that of Fernando Po, and on the coast itself the district round Corisco Bay. She has likewise declared a protectorate over the West African coast between Capes Bojador and Blanco (desert of Sahara). The presidios, whose population is given in Table II., are Peiion de Velez, Alhucemas, and Melila (besides Ceuta). Agriculture. Agriculture is by far the most important Spanish Agri- industry, nearly 73 per cent, of those whose occupations were clas- culture, sified at the census of 1877 being entered under that head. In general it is in a backward condition, and is now much less pro- ductive than in the time of the Romans and again under the Moors. The expulsion of the latter people in many places inflicted upon agriculture a blow from which it has not recovered to this day. Aragon and Estremadura, the two most thinly peopled of all the old provinces, and the eastern half of Andalusia (above Seville), 2 In all these cases the figures for Spain are the means of the years 1865-70 and 1880-83 inclusive.