Aragon ( /ˈærəɡɒn/ or /ˈærəɡən/, Spanish and Aragonese: Aragón, Catalan: Aragó or ) is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces (from north to south): Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza (also called Saragossa in English). The current Statute of Autonomy declares Aragon a nationality of Spain.
Aragon's northern province of Huesca borders France and is positioned in the middle of the Pyrenees. Within Spain, the community is flanked by Catalonia on the east, Valencia and Castile–La Mancha to the south, and Castile and León, La Rioja, and Navarre to the west.
Covering an area of 47,719 km2 (18,424 sq mi), the region's terrain ranges diversely from permanent glaciers to verdant valleys, rich pasture lands and orchards, through to the arid steppe plains of the central lowlands. Aragon is home to many rivers—most notably, the river Ebro, Spain's largest river in volume, which runs west-east across the entire region through the province of Zaragoza. It is also home to the Aneto, the highest mountain in the Pyrenees.
As of 2006, the population was 1,277,471—with more than half of the autonomous community's people living in Zaragoza, its capital city.
In addition to its three provinces, Aragon is subdivided into 33 comarcas or counties; all with a rich geopolitical and cultural history from its pre-Roman and Roman days; and from the four centuries of Islamic period as Marca Superior of Al-Andalus or kingdom (or taifa) of Saraqustah, and as lands that once belonged to the Frankish Marca Hispanica; and counties that later formed the Kingdom of Aragon and eventually the empire or Crown of Aragon.
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Famous quotes containing the word aragon:
“O reason, reason, abstract phantom of the waking state, I had already expelled you from my dreams, now I have reached a point where those dreams are about to become fused with apparent realities: now there is only room here for myself.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)
“We know that the nature of genius is to provide idiots with ideas twenty years later.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)
“The whole fauna of human fantasies, their marine vegetation, drifts and luxuriates in the dimly lit zones of human activity, as though plaiting thick tresses of darkness. Here, too, appear the lighthouses of the mind, with their outward resemblance to less pure symbols. The gateway to mystery swings open at the touch of human weakness and we have entered the realms of darkness. One false step, one slurred syllable together reveal a man’s thoughts.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)