City

Barcelona is the capital city of Catalonia which is an autonomous region in Spain. Catalonia (about 6 million inhabitants) is bilingual, Spanish and Catalan. Like French, Italian or Spanish, Catalan is a language derived from Latin and thus not too different from Spanish which is dominant on the Iberian Peninsula. Place names in Catalonia and in Barcelona are therefore only signposted in Catalan.

Barcelona city has 1.635.000 inhabitants, but only 99 km2, which makes it one of Europe's and the world's most densely populated cities. The city is actually only the nucleus of a bigger metropolitan area, which includes L'Hospitalet (300.000 inh.), Cornellà, Santa Coloma de Gramanet, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Badalona, and other smaller municipalities reaching aprox. 2,5 million inhabitants.

The Barcelona Metro system serves the whole metropolitan area and is complemented by a suburban rail service (Rodalies) run by the Spanish national railways (RENFE), an extension of the Sarrià-line operated by the Catalan railways (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya - FGC), and a second narrow gauge line (FGC) leaving from "Espanya" towards L'Hospitalet, Cornellà and further out to the southwest, although there is no joint fare system established so far between the different companies.