Why Catalonia Is Part of Spain but Portugal Is Not?

What is the historical root of Catalonia’s independence movement?

The Iberian Peninsula is a clear geographic unit, which would lead you to think it should be one country¹. But as we saw in previous articles, mountains had a different idea. It turns out that most of the peninsula has coalesced around one single country, Spain. It has had separatist movements for a long time, but has remained together. 

But not all the p…