Today is Catalonia national day. Here are 10 things you might not know about Catalonia:
Catalonia is in the North East of Spain and the Pyrenean mountains form its border with France. It occupies 6.3% (32,114sq km) of Spain’s territory.
About 7.5 million people live there, that’s more than 16% of the population of Spain.
The region has three official languages: Spanish, Occitan and Catalan. The latter is not a dialect of Spanish but rather developed independently from vulgar Latin, a non-standard form of Latin spoken in the Mediterranean region.
It isn’t known for sure where the name comes from but among the theories put forward are that it means "Land of the Goths", "land of castles" or "chiefs of battle".
The principal rivers in Catalonia are the Ter, Llobregat, and the Ebro (Catalan: Ebre), all of which run into the Mediterranean.
The flag of Catalonia is called the Senyera, and it's based on the heraldic emblem of Counts of Barcelona and the coat of arms of the Crown of Aragon, which consists of four red stripes on a golden background.
They celebrate St George’s Day in Catalan. People exchange roses and books with sweethearts, loved ones and colleagues. Traditionally, men give women a Rose and women give men a book.
There’s also a festival called correfoc (fire-run) where performers dress as devils, light Fireworks, dance to Drums and there are theatrical performances representing the conflict between good and evil.
A tradition which has gained UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity status is the Castell, or a human tower.
People from Catalonia include architect Antoni Gaudí and Salvador Dali. Pablo Picasso lived there for a time, as did author George Orwell, who volunteered as a Republican soldier and fought against Franco’s Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. He wrote about his experiences in his 1938 memoir, Homage to Catalonia.
Character birthday
Philip Brent, older brother of Judith (Electric Blue). As he was considerably older than she was the two were never close growing up. Philip was jealous of the attention his sister got due to her high intelligence and later her genetic variant powers. His own family have no idea that they are related to her.
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