this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2025
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The nation of Scotland would beg to differ...
If everyone who sometimes calls themselves a nation counts, surely Barcelona must too… 😉
"National capital" = capital of an independent sovereign state.
Does Barcelona have it's own parliament, legal system, justice system, education system, taxation system, benefits system, housing system?
Scotland isn't "sovereign" but it's far beyond what would be regarded as a region in other countries either.
The United Kingdom is, as the name implies, a union of nation states. So despite your patronising tone it is a nation within a nation.
Catalonia (the autonomous community or "nation" which Barcelona is the capital of) absolutely does have:
Perhaps that's why they have a strong independence movement then... Y'know, as a people who have their own unique national identity that have been oppressed into subjugation by a larger state. Ringing some similar bells with Scotland.
Maybe instead of denigrating people for wishing for self determination and supporting the oppressive larger states, you should consider your list, which are pretty common determinates of nationality, and think on whether that therefore qualifies these people for independence and the right to state their capital city is their national capital.
I certainly don't regard London as my capital city. My parliament is in Edinburgh, my immigrant friends go to Edinburgh for embassies, Edinburgh is the cultural hub, the financial hub, and legal focal point for the peoples of Scotland, why would they regard London as their capital?
The same, I'm sure, can be said for the peoples of Wales, the North of Ireland (to a lesser extent, with some, er, troubles there), and Catalonia.
After all, in the context of international laws, membership of extranational organisations like the EU, how many European nations are even sovereign any more? Does sovereignty matter in the context of this map when it's definition in the key is country?
Nothing I wrote is about "denigrating" people wishing for self-determination, or about "supporting the oppressive larger states". It's just currently a fact of the world that the independence movements in those places have not yet been successful. They might still be in the future!
Also applies to the three regions of Belgium, FWIW. Even your ID card and passport will be slightly different depending on where you get it.
And don't you start grandstanding about what you think that should mean for us, because regardless of what you say your outside understanding will be incomplete and your opinions will be ignorant.
The UK has a unique history that has led its constituent nations to conceptualize strong cultural and political identities - which is far from unusual. The only unusual thing is that Brits keeps pretending that the UK is somehow Special™ and foreigners should give any more of a shit about its subnational divisions than you do about US states or German States or Canadian Provinces.
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Apply the same logic. Scotland has had a pro- independence party in power since 2007, do you think this manifests in a vacuum or because there's legitimate reason to regard Scotland as a nation?
75 years ago would you disregard the notion of Ukraine being a nation? Now you'd agree it most definitely is, but back then it was a member of the USSR, does that remove its credentials of being a nation just because it's been subjugated by a larger entity? Despite it's lengthy history, individual culture, etc?
I think you're the one disregarding other nations. Scotland is far from the only captive nation vying for independence in Europe, let alone the world.
Yes (mostly). Well, (the “principality” of) Catalonia does, and Barcelona is its capital.