Towns And Cities: Confusing places

Mallorca, like the rest of Spain, has any number of definitions as to places. And being Mallorca, it has these definitions in more than one language. Like Britain, there can be villages, towns or cities, but understanding why a place is one or the other in Mallorca isn't straightforward.

Manacor celebrates on Monday its one-hundredth anniversary of having been named (by royal decree) as a "ciudad". The problem with a ciudad is that it can mean either town or city. In Manacor's case, I am pretty sure it doesn't mean city. There are, or appear to be, similar criteria for a place to be a city in Spain as in Britain, e.g. a cathedral. However, this doesn't prevent Madrid, the capital of Spain that has a damn great cathedral apparently not being a city, or a ciudad. It is in fact a "villa": not somewhere you stay when on holiday with a nice pool and a terrace barbecue, but a town - at least I think it's a town. Madrid can, though, claim to be a villa with a capital V, which other villas can't claim, unless they're from Aston.

Barcelona, on the other hand, is a ciudad, as in a city (possibly). A distinction between a villa and ciudad is that a ciudad enjoys greater privileges than a villa. Which is odd. I mean, how many privileges does Madrid need to acquire to have more than Barcelona; it's the bloody capital after all. And on this basis, Manacor has more privileges than Madrid. Maybe.

Confused? You're not the only one. In Mallorca, its best known city (and probably its only one), Palma, has in the past been known simply as "Ciudad"; it still is among some. City seems reasonable enough in Palma's case. Massive cathedral, university, centre of administration, loads of people; they all fit a city template. Manacor can't claim the same. Yet it is a ciudad, whereas somewhere like Santa Margalida is a villa, or more commonly a "vila", as in the Catalan. Santa Margalida is indeed commonly referred to as vila, though a vila can also, in Catalan, be a village. So maybe Santa Margalida is actually a village. But it, like Madrid, manages to get itself a capital V. Vila. How did that happen?

Ah but, there is another type of village, which is the "pueblo". This is a place with all manner of pretensions as a pueblo is not just a village, it is also the entire state of Spain and/or its people. The pueblo is how one might refer to, for example, Alcúdia town, though a working definition for a ciudad, in its broadest sense through population size, would make it a ciudad. It isn't a village, not with close to 20,000 people it isn't, but this is the population of the whole municipality, and officially this is what Alcúdia is, as is Manacor, which is also, in official terms, a ciudad.

In Mallorca, there is also the "pobla", as in Sa Pobla. What's this? It isn't a Catalan "pueblo", as this would be "poble". A pobla is a population, a place with people if you like. Sa Pobla is sometimes known by a Spanish variant, La Puebla, though it could also be La Población. Pobla, Puebla, Población, it's a municipality nevertheless.

We could also consider the "aldea" or the "lugar", but by now I imagine you've lost the will to live, so we won't. Instead, let's go back a hundred years and to the time when Manacor became a town, or a city; a ciudad at any rate.

It became so because a Mallorcan parliamentary deputy wanted it to be. Alexandre Rosselló petitioned the king of the time, the later-to-be treacherous Alfonso XIII, and he said yes, you shall have your ciudad. And what qualified Manacor for this status? Knowing this might actually help us to understand what makes a ciudad and what doesn't, though you shouldn't bank on it. It all had to do with Majorica Pearls. The company was booming, as also was the local timber trade. Added to this was the fact that Manacor was a town (or city) committed to supporting the crown and had a population - a población, so maybe a pobla or puebla as well - of over 15,000 people.

So there we are. This is how Manacor became a ciudad. But is it a city or a town? I'm going town, but then a town is a villa, but a villa could also be a village, or is this only in Catalan, and a village is a pueblo, but that's also the whole country and its capital is a villa and not a ciudad. A town and not a city. Possibly.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.