CITY OF BARCELONA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 48, 25 January 1939, Page 9

CITY OF BARCELONA.

OF GREAT J IMPORTANCE. Barcelona, the great objective of tlie Spanish rebels, which was formerly capital of Catalonia, since 1833, has been the capital of the province of Barcelona. Its population in 1931 was 1,005,565. The city and suburbs occupy an ampitheatre between the flood plains of the rivers Llobregat and Besos, facing south-east to the Mediterranean and backed by a section of the Catalonian coastal chain which forms a pyramid culminating in the Tibidabo. In easy communication by the valleys of the al>ove rivers both with the structural depressions of the Panades and the Valles, lying behind the coastal chain, and with the lowlands to the north of the inner mountain chain, Barcelona lies both on the coastal road and at the end of its connections with interior communications. The fortified hill of Montjuich, rising from the sea to the south-west, separates the city from the month of the Llobregat. The entire ampitheatre is now urbanised. The special character of Barcelona lies in the association within a clearly delimited area of gardens of luxuriant vegetation, factories and other facilities of industrial life, and the merchant shipping of a busy port. The Ciudad is the old Barcelona, built round the Roman Barcino which stood on the Monte Taber, a narrow tongue of rather higher ground. The educational institutions of Barcelona have from a very early period been numerous and important. The University occupies an extensive building area in the new town. There are, besides an Academy of Natural Sciences, a College of Medicine and Surgery, and an Academy of Fine Arts. The principal charitable foundations belore the war started were the Casa de Caridad or House of Charity; the General Hospital, dating from 1401 ; and the Foundling Hospital. The principal civic and commercial buildings arc the. Casa Consistorial, a fine Gothic hall; the Lonja or Exchange, and the Aduaua or Customs-house.

The port of Barcelona, a.t first little more than an open roadstead, was improved in 1474 by the construction of a mole, but the harbour proper dates from the 17th Century. It includes now an outer and an inner harbour; tho outer harbour is protected by two breakwaters, and is entered by a channel 33ft. deep; the inner harbour can usually provide accommodation alongside flic quays.for vessels drawing 24ft. to 27ft. During the war over Hie two and n-hnlf years many British shins in port have been bombed by rel>cl aeroplanes. As' a commercial city. Barcelona is the centre for the entire industrial area of Catalonia, which has its warehouses here. As an industrial city, it is characterised by the groat variety of its manufactures.