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Ciutat Vella
District of Barcelona
Location of Ciutat Vella within Barcelona
Coordinates: 41°22′51″N 2°10′23″E / 41.38083°N 2.17306°E / 41.38083; 2.17306
Country	Spain
Autonomous Community	Catalonia
Province	Barcelona
Comarca	Barcelonès
Municipality	Barcelona
Neighbourhoods	El Raval, El Gòtic, La Barceloneta, Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera
Area
• Total	4.37 km (1.69 sq mi)
Population
• Total	107,426
• Density	25,000/km (64,000/sq mi)
Website	bcn.cat/ciutatvella

Ciutat Vella (Catalan pronunciation: [siwˈtad ˈbeʎə], meaning in English "Old City") is a district of Barcelona, numbered District 1. The name means "old city" in Catalan and refers to the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Ciutat Vella is nestled between the Mediterranean Sea and the neighborhood called l'Eixample ("the Extension").

There are four administrative neighborhoods (some of them include former or traditional neighborhoods):

• La Barceloneta
• El Gòtic
• El Raval
• Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera:
  • Sant Pere
  • Santa Caterina
  • La Ribera

Les Rambles

Running down the center of the Ciutat Vella (dividing the Raval and Barri Gòtic) are the boulevards Les Rambles, popularly known as La Rambla (in singular) since they are continuous, like a single street. Les Rambles stretches from Plaça Catalunya to the Mediterranean Sea and, since the 1990s, now extends out over the sea into one of Barcelona's newest centers of entertainment, Maremàgnum. Each of Les Rambles has its own specialty. La Rambla de les Flors (The Flowers Rambla) is devoted to flower stands, another Rambla to animal vendors (selling mainly birds), and the lowest Rambla hosts temporary art fairs. El Mercat de Sant Josep (more commonly known as La Boqueria) and Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona's Opera House) are both located here. Les Rambles are among the most frequently travelled streets by pedestrians in Barcelona.

At the bottom, there is the Museu Marítim (naval museum), which chronicles the history of life on the Mediterranean, including a full-scale model of a galley. The museum is housed in the medieval Drassanes (shipyards), where the ships that made Catalonia a great sea power in the Mediterranean were built.

Raval

This portion of the city is often referred to as el Barri Xinès, or Chinatown. The Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona), the Rambla del Raval (a walkway to the sea) and the Filmoteca de Catalunya are in this neighborhood.

Gothic Quarter

On the other side of La Rambla, is the Gothic Quarter. This neighborhood houses the Barcelona Cathedral, the Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya, and the Barcelona City Hall. Tourists visit this neighborhood to see Royal Square (a Spanish-style plaza) and to shop in one of the tourist shops along Ferran street. The Museu Picasso can be found in the area known as el Born, within the Barri Gótic, in addition to the historic restaurant Els Quatre Gats (The Four Cats), which was a popular hang-out for artists, including Pablo Picasso.

To the north of the Gothic Quarter lie the Jardins de Fonseré i Mestre which contain modernist buildings housing zoological and geological collections. The adjacent Parc de la Ciutadella includes both the Parliament of Catalonia and the Barcelona Zoo whose most famous resident was an albino gorilla, Snowflake, who died in 2003 of skin cancer.

La Ribera and El Born

La Barceloneta

See also

• Districts of Barcelona
• Street names in Barcelona
• Urban planning of Barcelona

References

1. La Rambla Retrieved 2023-12-15.
2. El Raval Neighborhood Guide Retrieved 2023-12-15.
3. "Gothic Quarter". Visit Barcelona. BarcelonaTurisme. Retrieved 22 July 2017.

External links

• Foment Ciutat Vella Archived 2017-06-19 at the Wayback Machine
• Information at Barceloca.com
• Barcelona
• Barri Gòtic and Raval map
• La Ribera and Barceloneta map
• Barri Gotic info from tourist-barcelona.com

• Ciutat Vella
• Districts of Barcelona
• History of Barcelona