Lorraine Williamson
There are parts of Spain where identity sits so close to the skin it almost hums. Anyone who has lived here for a while knows that the way people view their own region — and the one next door — can be coloured by history, politics, or simply old habits. A new Spain regional irritation study has tried to capture those feelings, and the results are familiar yet still revealing.
Spain is not short of regional character. You could drive from Zaragoza to Seville and pick up entirely new rhythms of speech, humour and self-image. When researchers at the Instituto Catalán Internacional para la Paz and EsadeEcPol began mapping how Spaniards rated other communities, they found plenty of warmth — but also one recurring cold patch.
Catalonia, once again, sits in that awkward space where admiration and irritation collide. People in the region tend to speak proudly about their own identity, while responses from elsewhere cooled noticeably. Nothing dramatic, but enough to show that Catalonia still carries the weight of years of political arguments, its symbolism difficult for others to ignore.
The numbers don’t scream conflict, but they whisper something
Most regions landed safely in the middle of the 0–100 scale. The country is not an archipelago of hostility; it’s more of a patchwork with uneven stitching. Madrid’s rating of Catalonia came in at 45.2, a score that sounds more weary than angry. Catalans gave the capital a mildly warmer 50.4. The Basque Country, perhaps recognising something of itself in Catalonia’s struggle with identity, offered a far higher 56.3.
If anything, the figures suggest emotional hesitancy rather than outright tension — the kind of coolness felt between relatives who have spent too long disagreeing about the same topic.
Politics never stays in the background for long
Every discussion about Catalonia eventually loops back to politics, even when the topic begins elsewhere. The push for greater autonomy, the independence drive, the years of charged debate — all of it has seeped into how the region is perceived. The study’s authors, Sandra León and Amuitz Garmendia, say the data reflects distance built over time, fed by news cycles and party lines rather than everyday encounters.
It is less about neighbours clashing and more about the residue of a national argument that hasn’t quite settled.
Other regions step easily into the warmth
While Catalonia sparks the most irritation, several communities sit at the opposite end of the map. Andalucia, Galicia and the Canary Islands continue to attract notably warm responses. Their reputations — lively, generous, calm, humorous — seem to travel well, even to places with very different cultures.
People often describe Andalucians as effortlessly friendly, Galicians as gentle and rooted in community life, and Canary Islanders as relaxed in a way the mainland sometimes envies. These are stereotypes, of course, but they are positive ones, and they persist.
A more nuanced picture than Spain’s loudest headlines
The study does a useful job of steering clear of dramatic conclusions. Yes, there are discrepancies in how Spaniards view each other, but they are smaller than political commentators often suggest. Many respondents expressed an acceptance of regional variety — an understanding that Spain is, and always has been, a tapestry rather than a single cloth.
The Basque score for Catalonia underlines that point: strong regional identities sometimes recognise each other’s battles more readily than outsiders expect.
What this says about Spain today
Taken as a whole, the Spain regional irritation study paints a portrait of a country whose differences are real but rarely explosive. Emotional warmth rises and falls from one region to the next, shaped by memory, politics and cultural shorthand. Catalonia sits in a slightly uncomfortable position, neither rejected nor fully embraced, a reminder of unresolved tensions rather than an object of national hostility.
Spain’s diversity remains its strength, even when it produces friction. The irritation captured by the study is mild, but telling — a quiet sign of how the past continues to echo through the present.
Source: ABC