hello everybody
and welcome back madridman

i have a very confusing question to ask that has me baffeled.ive been taking sides beliving that it is part of leon and sometimes as part of castillay leon.also why was it changed to castilla y leon(i know the region of leon existed and that it was larger than the present leon).is it still part of leon or castilla y leon at the same time or is just originally part of leon.any ideas...i would be very pleased to know the truth about all this.

Last year we drove up, stayed a night in Leon and then continued through the Picos de Europa to Santander. The WEIRDEST thing was we kept on seeing official signs for Castilla y Leon where the Castilla was crossed out... then we passed some sort of border and the Leon was crossed out.

I have NO idea what this meant except the obvious; that these two areas don't like being known as one... Who knows HOW many hundreds of years that goes back to. Maybe they're just a little too close to Pais Vasco and feel a need to rebel.

-Russ

Mike,
Currently (since the early 80s) Zamora and Salamanca are part of the Region (Autonomous Community) of Castilla y León.
Castilla y Leon has a total of nine provinces and is one of the largest regions in the EU, altho its population is only 2.5m

Before the 80s, there was Leon formed by Leon, Zamora and Salamanca. And there was Castilla la vieja (Castile ye olde, lol) formed by Valladolid, Burgos, Santander, Palencia,Soria, Segovia, Avila (and perhaps La Rioja, altho im not sure at this point)

This division was due to the fact that historically they were two different kingdoms: Kingdom of Asturias-Leon, and Kingdom of Castile.

The origin of those two kingdoms. After the Muslims came to Spain the guys in Asturias organised themselves and created in the VIII century a Kingdom. This expanded east to Cantabria, and south to Leon. Cantabria became a kind of independent county and started expanding south itself.
so you have Asturias, Leon, Zamora and Salamanca on one side. And Cantabria, burgos, palencia ... on the other.

During the middle age they merged and then they separted and then they merged again forming the Kingdom of Castile, which then merged with the Crown of Aragon. After that they merged with the Kingdom of Navarre creating what would become the Spanish State. sorry about the utter simplification... but wasnt very good at history anyway.

Russ,
After Leon and Castilla La Vieja "merged", the new capital of the newly created region was moved to Valladolid (Castile)... so now some people in Leon regret having merged with Castile as they consider they have lost economically. They say that Leon is not getting as much public investment as it should... being Leon the richest of the provinces and all the rest. Some (fewer) in Zamora and Salamanca also would like to separate.

Thats why there have appeared several small Parties supporting Leon sepparation.
And also some people wasting their time graffitying the road signs. I dont think that this can be compared to the basque situation although I see where you come from...

Other reason but in my opinion less important is a possible "cultural" difference that leoneses could claim, as Leon used to have a language or dialect called Leones, which is basically very similar to Asturiano. Leones is no longer spoken in Leon though.

My view is that things will stay as they are with Castilla y Leon a single region.

thanks for youre great imformation lost in madrid and daniel boone.my confusion is finally over.at last man!

What you may have seen in León on the signs is no different than what you see in other areas of Spain from Galiza to Catalunya to Euskadi: In most cases, these are a few street hoods who go out and paint over the castellano or anything that denotes central Spanish government, in the hopes that we'll all be hoodwinked into thinking that there's this silent (large) minority who wants to separate on the basis of linugistics from the rest of Spain. Even in Euskadi, who has the most UN-common with Spain, this is a minority. Usually these so-called separatists are no more educated than the office chair you're sitting on as you read this post.

Here's the history of the division and unification of Castilla, et. al. [prepare to be bored]:

Castilla and León were separate kingdoms for the first roughly 300 years of muslim rule in Spain (Reconquest starts ca. 718). In 1035, Fernando I assumed the throne of Castilla, and in 1037, that of León. Sister Urraca was given Zamora. Fernando ruled both kingdoms for about 30 years, and upon his death left Castilla to his son Sancho (Sancho II de Castilla) and León to his son Alfonso VI, who later had Sancho murdered [unless you believe the "I had nothing to do with it" that the Cid made Alfonso swear to him in front of a large gathering in the cathedral], and thence became ruler of both kingdoms. During the 11th century, Alfonso also ruled La Rioja, but this rich area was batted around for centuries, (as any wine aficionado will attest, Rioja was worth fighting over).

Castilla y León was united for about 100 years until 1155, then was reunited under Fernando III in 1230. It would remain united and be incorporated together into united Spain under Fernando II of Aragón, and then inseparably united under Carlos V in 1516.

As you can see, those who profess that León should be separate should perhaps have been born 500 years ago when fighting for that was possible. León has always felt entitled, though, as capital of a rich area, and the capital of northwestern Iberia under Roman rule. It was Asturias, however, that was never fully captured by the Moors, and therefore they who perhaps should feel entitled. Alfonso III the Great of León pushed his border to the Duero River (on which sits Zamora the city) in the 10th century, but he never annexed Salamanca, which sits further south.

As for dialectical differences, those are no more pronounced in León than they are in Soria. As you head into the hills and then over the border to Asturias, you may hear the occasional "bable" speaker (search the board for examples), but again, these undereducated protestors are no more a threat to secession than I am to Shaquille O'Neal on a basketball court.

To answer your question then: Castilla and León share now almost 800 years of commonality, and also a common language, unlike Galicia, Euskadi or Cataluña. Salamanca and Zamora (to a lesser extent) have, since the reconquest of those territories from the Moors, formed part of Old Castile (Castilla la Vieja).