If I had to explain the future of Spain to an outsider, I would start with the distribution of the population, a forgotten variable that is nevertheless attracting renewed interest from commentators, journalists and analysts from around the world given India’s overtaking in China in the global balance of inhabitants of the Earth. The people. We return to it as the authentic essence of the nation. The rest is decorated.
Let’s see if I can explain it. Around 4.2 million people, i.e. almost 9% of all Spanish citizens, live on the Cantabrian ledge and at the north-west end of the Iberian Peninsula. If we continue in a clockwise direction, another group of regions, let’s call it the North-East, brings together a slightly higher number, 4.5 million inhabitants, who occupy the territory born in the western foothills of the Pyrenees and includes the entire Ebro valley.
Next would come the Mediterranean sea front, from the eastern Pyrenees elevations to the bay of Estepona, including the Balearic Islands. This is the great geodemographic space of Spain: above the administrative borders, almost 18 million people live in this human continuum, which represents more than 38% of the census inhabitants.
Following the rotation of the clock, we reach what is formally known as the South, the entire Guadalquivir valley up to its foothills, Sierra Morena and Serralada Subbética, with just over 6 million people, almost 13% of the country’s population , including Extremadura lands (and if we continued north, we would have the Atlantic front, Portugal, with about 10 million inhabitants).
About 4.5 million people live in the vast central territories of the northern sub-plateau and the southern sub-plateau, bounded by the mountains of León and the Central system, the mountainous region of Conca and the Bétic system. And in the center, Madrid, with the additions of the functional urban region of Toledo and Guadalajara, which gathers almost 8 million human beings, 17% of the country. The Canary Islands, with 2.2 million inhabitants, would complete the route.
Now that the still picture is taken, let’s liven it up with the net population growth data. In these last four years (2017-2021 and with information from Eurostat) an interesting geographical continuum of growth is formed that starts in Huelva and ends in Girona: all the Spanish provinces bathed by the Mediterranean (and by the fragment of the Atlantic de Huelva) have seen an increase in population in recent years. All.
This behavior, which draws the Mediterranean axis, has its extension along the northern peninsular corridor and stops, of course, in Cantabria and La Rioja, although it extends through the Ebro valley (except Teruel) thanks to a diagonal towards the center of the peninsula, the Huesca-Zaragosa-Guadalajara-Madrid-Toledo arrow. In the rest of Spain, only A Coruña and Pontevedra appear with a positive balance sheet, which seem to want to connect with the lands, also with net gain, that Porto leads.
What do these two images show, one still and one dynamic? First of all, the human power of the Mediterranean region of Spain. Population concentration and demographic growth are projected onto territories with relatively balanced economic sectors and first-rate logistics potential. Any prospective analysis would allow us to conclude that, due to these factors and starting with the population, Spain’s center of gravity will gradually shift to the east of the peninsula. Can we, at the same time, predict an increase in the necessary participation and responsibility of these territories in the governability of the country, in its orientation and in the determination of its needs? It would be fair.
This analysis is already on the table of Ajuria Enea (as it was on the table of the Palau de la Generalitat (despite the fact that it was buried by other folders). A few days ago, the journalist José A. Zarzalejos spoke of the new political perspective of multilateralism piloted from the Lehendakaritza He is right: we are moving from bilaterality to multilateralism because of geodemographic analyzes like these.
I go ahead to write that this is not a story of rich and poor. In Spain, which is growing, there is a lot of poverty and a lot of polarization and social disarticulation. In the same way, in declining Spain we find remarkable environments of quality of life, cohesion and mutual help. But demography is and will be decisive in the future, in the daily commitment of the country that is Spain. Ensuring adequate living standards for all, wherever they live, is the minimum that can be expected from a serious State: empty Spain must continue to fight for this, but it is also an obligation of the rulers to promote its most dense areas and towns, giving them the fuel to develop their potential, while accepting their co-leadership.
It seems natural that India, with a sixth of the world’s population and surpassing China, should apply for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, but it is less understandable that, in the coming five years, the area most Spain’s demographic dynamics legitimately seek to influence the general orientation of the country?
No one should understand this order of things as a disdain for the less populated territories or those in demographic decline. It does not defend any territorial supremacy, nor a demographic determinism. But a country must be a permanent commitment, of a vertical and horizontal nature. And in this commitment sensitive issues for the densest and most populated territories of Spain have been too absent, such as fairer regional financing, future infrastructures, the assumption of the necessary command in the general productive direction of the country and the incorporation to the common heritage of the cultures of their territories.
A country is not a question of majorities, it is true, but demography is sending a clear message about where it is and, above all, where it will be, the center of gravity of Spain.
