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Europe · High and late Middle Ages

Crown of Aragon

1162–1716

Corona d'Aragó; a composite/confederal monarchy of Aragon, Catalonia, and later Valencia, Mallorca, and Mediterranean realms. The union took full effect under Alfonso II (1162/1164–1196), son of Petronilla and Ramon Berenguer IV.

Existed
1162–1716
Shown on the map
1169–1515
Peak area
244k km²
Region
Europe

Names

Corona d'Aragó; a composite/confederal monarchy of Aragon, Catalonia, and later Valencia, Mallorca, and Mediterranean realms. The union took full effect under Alfonso II (1162/1164–1196), son of Petronilla and Ramon Berenguer IV. Its most celebrated king, James I the Conqueror (1213–1276), conquered Mallorca (1229–1231) and Valencia (entered 9 October 1238), establishing the Kingdom of Valencia and, by the Treaty of Almizra (1244), delimiting spheres with Castile. Under Peter III and successors the Crown built a Mediterranean empire: Sicily (from 1282, after the Sicilian Vespers), Sardinia, later Naples (under Alfonso V, 1442), and the Duchies of Athens and Neopatras (via the Catalan Company). Its institutions were notably contractual: the Corts of each realm and the Justicia of Aragon, a magistrate protecting subjects' rights against the crown. The Crown persisted until the Nueva Planta decrees (1707–1716) abolished the separate institutions of Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca, and Catalonia after the War of the Spanish Succession.

Common questions

What was the Crown of Aragon?
Corona d'Aragó; a composite/confederal monarchy of Aragon, Catalonia, and later Valencia, Mallorca, and Mediterranean realms. The union took full effect under Alfonso II (1162/1164–1196), son of Petronilla and Ramon Berenguer IV.
When did the Crown of Aragon exist?
The Crown of Aragon existed 1162–1716. On this map it is drawn 1169–1515.
How large was the Crown of Aragon?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Crown of Aragon covered about 244,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for al-Andalus, the taifas and the Christian kingdoms as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia and academic work on the historiography of the Reconquista and the taifa period (García-Sanjuán). The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

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