Catalonia has been settled by the Phoenicians, the Etruscans and the Greeks, who were mainly in the coastal areas of Rosas and Empuries (above). Then came the Romans, who built more settlements and infrastructure. Catalonia remained a part of the Roman Empire until it was conquered by the Visigoths in the fifth century.

Catalonia was conquered by Arabs in 711 AD. The Frankish king Charlemagne stopped their advance at Tours on the Loire River and, by 759, the north of Catalonia was once again Christian. In 1137, the counties that made up Catalonia entered an alliance with the Crown of Aragon.

In the 13th century, the institutions of Catalan self-administration were created under the banner of the Generalitat de Catalunya. After the unification of the Crown of Aragon with that of Castile in 1476, Aragon was largely able to keep its autonomic institutions. However, the Catalan revolt — from 1640 to 1659 — saw parts of Catalonia ceded to present-day France.

After the conquest of Barcelona on September 11, 1714, by the Bourbon King Phillip V, Catalan instuitutions were dissolved and self-administration came to an end. Every year, on September 11, Catalans commemorate the end of their right to autonomy.

After the abdication of King Amadeo I of Spain, the first Spanish Republic was declared in February 1873. It lasted barely a year. The supporters of the Republic were split – one group supporting the idea of a centralized republic, the others wanting a federal system. Pictured here is Francisco Pi i Maragall, a supporter of federalism and one of five presidents of the short-lived republic.

Catalonia sought to establish a new state within the Spanish republic, but this only served to exacerbate the differences between republicans, ultimately dividing and weakening them. In 1874, the monarchy and the House of Bourbon (led by King Alfonso XII, pictured here) took the helm.

Between 1923 — with the support of the monarchy, the army and the church — General Primo de Rivera declared a dictatorship. Catalonia became a center of opposition and resistance. After the end of the dictatorship, the politician Francesc Macia (pictured here) successfully pressed for important rights of autonomy for Catalonia.

In the Second Spanish Republic, Catalan lawmakers worked on the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia. This was approved by the Spanish parliament in 1932. Francesc Macia was elected president of the Generalitat of Catalonia by the Catalan parliament. However, the victory of Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) put an end to all that.

The Franco regime ruled with an iron rod. Political parties were banned and the Catalan language and culture were surpressed.

After the first parliamentary elections that followed the end of the Franco dictatorship, the Generalitat of Catalonia was provisionally restored. Under the democratic Spanish constitution of 1978, Catalonia was given a new Statute of Autonomy just a year later.

The new Statute of Autonomy recognized the autonomy of Catalonia and the importance of the Catalan language. In comparison to the 1932 statute, it was enhanced in the fields of culture and education but curtailed when it came to the realm of justice. Pictured here is Jordi Pujol, the long-time head of the government of Catalonia after the dictatorship.

A desire for independence has grown stronger in recent years. In 2006, Catalonia was given a new statute that broadened the Catalan government's powers. However, it lost these after a complaint by the conservative Popular Party to the Constitutional Court of Spain.

A referendum on independence was already envisaged for November 9, 2014. The first question was "Do you want Catalonia to become a state?" In the case of an affirmative answer, the second question was posed: "Do you want this state to be independent?" However, the Constitutional Court suspended the vote.

Since January 2016, Carles Puigdemont has been president of the Catalan government. He proceeded with the separatist course of his predecessor Artur Mas and called the new referendum for October 1, 2017. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy dismissed this as unconstitutional.

The Romans had several provinces with Hispania in their names on the Iberian Peninsula. Modern Spain also encompasses such wide cultural diversity that the Spanish themselves speak of Las Espanas (The Spains). The country in its present form was never united under a single ruler until after the 1702-14 War of the Spanish Succession.

Spanish nationalism is strong in many regions, with former kingdoms such as Aragon largely content to be recognized as part of the Spanish nation-state. Asturias has its own language, but takes pride in its role as the birthplace of the Reconquista, or the taking back of Iberia from the Moors. Spanish nationalism was evident in recent years in Madrid in response to Catalonia's referendum.

Catalonia has long battled for independence. Its flag, the Senyera, is very similar to that of Aragon, to which it once belonged. The design is fabled to represent four bloodied fingers of Count Wilfred the Hairy being passed over a gold shield. Catalans were fairly happy with their situation until a court struck down the region's statute of autonomy in 2006 and support for independence grew.

Valencianismo, or Valencian nationalism, sprang out of the Renaixenca, an early-19th-century rebirth of the Catalan language, of which Valencian is just one variant. However, nationalist sentiment is not widespread in the region, which is home to Spain's Tomatina tomato-throwing festival. The Valencian Nationalist Bloc usually gets about 4 percent of the vote for the autonomous parliament.

The Balearic Islands — Mallorca, Ibiza, Menorca, Formentera — all speak variants of Catalan. Though there is a greater nationalist feeling on the islands than in Valencia, it is still more subdued than in Catalonia. Meanwhile, La Franja, a strip of Catalan-speaking land in Aragon, was split by the independence referendum, though most residents do not advocate self-determination for themselves.

Because of terror attacks by the ETA militant group, Basque separatists used to make the headlines far more often than Catalonia's independence movement. Separatists consider the Basque Country in France and Spain and the region of Navarre to be one nation. About a third of people want full independence, but most want more autonomy. A referendum proposed in 2008 was ruled illegal.

Although it was the birthplace of the centralist dictator Francisco Franco, Galicia has the strongest tradition of separatism after Catalonia and the Basque Country. Even Spain's mainstream national parties display a streak of Galicianism in the region. Perhaps as a result, starkly nationalist parties receive a lower share of the regional vote.

The Arabic name al-Andalus originally refers to the areas of the Iberian Peninsula that were under Moorish rule for 760 years. As Christians reconquered territories, the area known as Andalusia shrank southwards. Most Andalusians voted for autonomy after Franco died in 1975, but there is little appetite for full independence.