Population and depopulation in Northern Catalonia, 19th and 20th centuries: a state of the issue

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present a state of the issue on the evolution of the population in Northern Catalonia, that is, the current department of the Pyrénées-Orientales, a Catalan territory ceded to France in 1659 and which became a French department in 1790. The objective is to review the works carried out on the history of the evolution of the habitat and the depopulation of this territory, evaluating the available sources and the proposals of these works to achieve in-depth knowledge of these structuring elements of the history of this territory, comparing it with the contributions of the Catalan historiography. The article is constructed chronologically around three major periods: first, from the Revolution until 1856, marked by a relative territorial balance and abundant population in the western mountains; second, between 1856 and the 1950s, showing the appearance of a significant imbalance with the depopulation of the mountains and the growth of the Rosselló Plain; and finally, from the 1960s with the metropolisation around the town of Perpinyà and the coast and significant changes in the nature of the population.