Vegueria

A vegueria (Catalan pronunciation: [bəɣəˈɾi.ə]), plural vegueries, is the highest-level regional division of Catalonia. Each vegueria is further divided into comarques and municipalities. As of 2025, the Catalan Vegueries Law divides the territory into eight vegueries. The autonomous Aran Valley, considered a "unique territorial entity", is not part of any of vegueria.

The vegueries system is based on the feudal administrative territorial jurisdiction of the vegueríes "vicariates" of the Principality of Catalonia, which was abolished with the Nueva Planta decrees of 1716. Preceding the vegueries is the division into ‘functional territorial areas’ in 1995, now mostly identical to the vegueries, except for the merger of the Val d'Aran and Alt Pirineu into a single Alt Pirineu i Aran region for statistical purposes. The current administrative division was established by the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006 with two functions: an inter-municipal government and the arrangement of the services from the Generalitat de Catalunya.

Although the vegueries are intended to become Catalonia's only first-level administrative division and a full replacement for the four diputacions of the official provinces of Catalonia within the Spanish system in the future and create a council for each vegueria, the latter is currently still used administratively at state level, as any changes to the State's provinces were ruled to violate the Spanish Constitution. Thus, in practice, despite being official, vegueries are not allowed to carry the administrative powers of the provinces and currently remain only usable for similar territorial deployments to those carried out by the areas, e.g. government services, weather reports, commercial distribution, media coverage, curfew during the COVID-19 pandemic, television frequencies, etc.