NAVARRA, an inland province of northern Spain, lies between 41° 57' and 43° 18' N. lat., and between 40' and 1° 15' 50" W. long.,—its greatest length from north to south being 90 miles, its breadth from east to west 86 miles, and its area 4046 square miles. The population in 1877 was 304,184. It is bounded on the N. by France (Basses Pyrénées), on the E. by Huesca and Zaragoza, on the S. by Zaragoza and Logrono, and on the W. by Alava and Guipuzcoa. It is traversed from east to west by the Pyrenees and by the Cantabrian mountains, their continuation in the west; and almost the whole of the province is overrun by the ramifications of this great central cordillera, which on the north-east especially presents an almost impassable barrier, and encloses numberless secluded pastoral valleys. From Navarra there are only three practicable roads for carriages into France,—those by the Puerta de Vera, the Puerta de Maya, and Roncesvalles. The highest summits in the province are those of Altoviscar (5380 feet) and Adi (5220 feet). Southward of a line drawn from Sanguesa by Tafalla to Estella the country presents a series of descending but comparatively level terraces, until the Ebro is reached. The chief river flowing towards the Atlantic is the Bidasoa, which rises near the Puerta de Maya, and after flowing southwards through the valley of Baztan takes a north-easterly course, and for a short distance above its outfall at Fuenterrabia constitutes the frontier between France and Spain (Guipuzcoa); by far the larger portion of the province has its drainage to the Mediterranean through the Ebro, whose main feeders there are the Ega and the Aragon with its tributary the Arga. The geology of the province will be best explained in connexion with that of the Pyrenaean system ...and of the country as a whole. Gypsum, limestone, freestone, and marble are quarried; there are also mines of copper (near Leiza), lead (Leiza and Vera), and iron (Goizueta and the valley of Aezcoa), employing a considerable population; and rock-salt is mined at Funes and Valtierra. There are numerous mineral and thermal springs, but none of more than local fame. The hilly districts are almost entirely appropriated to forests and pasture, the most common trees being the pine, beech, oak, and chestnut. Much of the lower part of the province is well adapted for agriculture, producing the various cereals in remunerative abundance; the principal fruit grown is the apple, from which cider is made in some districts; hemp, flax, and oil also occur, and the cultivation of the mulberry for the silkworm is not unknown. Game, both large and small, is abundant in the mountains, not even the bear being wholly extinct; and the streams abound with trout and other fish. The manufactures of the province, which are not important, include cloth and paper; wool, iron, salt, hides, and liquorice are the chief exports. Administratively Navarra is divided into five “merindades” or departments,—those of Pamplona, Tafalla, Olite, Estella, and Sanguesa. The capital is Pamplona, with a population of 25,630. It is connected by rail on the west with Alsasua on the trunk line between Madrid and San Sebastian, and with the Ebro valley in the south. There are no other railways in the province. Besides Pamplona, the only ayuntamiento with a population exceeding 10,000 is Tudela (10,086); Baztan comes next with 9931.
Navarra, or Navarre, along with Guipuzcoa, at the time of the Roman conquest formed the territory of the Vascones, which afterwards became part of Hispania Tarraconensis. Never thoroughly subjugated by the Romans, the Basques or Navarrese offered considerable resistance to the Visigothic kings in the 5th and 6th centuries, and afterwards in the 8th, with more success, to the Moors. In 778 Charlemagne succeeded in imposing his yoke upon them, but with the assistance of their old enemies they soon afterwards asserted their independence of the Franks. Garcias Ximenez (860) is named as having been their first king. In the beginning of the 11th century Sancho III., el Mayor, had made himself sovereign of Castile and Leon as well as of Sobrarve and Aragon, but before his death in 1035 divided his extensive dominions into four unequal parts, Navarre being assigned to his son Garcia III. Garcia’s son Sancho IV. was overthrown in 1076 by a cousin, Sancho I. of Aragon, in whose line the two crowns remained united until the election of Garcia Ramirez on the death of Alphonso I. (VIL of Castile). In 1234 Theobald, third count of Champagne, was crowned at Pamplona as Theobald I., having been adopted as heir by Sancho V1I., and through Joanna, the granddaughter of Theobald, who married Philip the Fair of France in 1284, the crowns of France and Navarre became united in the person of Louis X. They were again separated on the death of Charles IV. of France without male issue; Joanna II., the daughter of Louis X. and wife of Philip, count of Evreux, was crowned queen of Navarre at Pamplona in 1329. Her great-granddaughter Blanche was married first to Martin of Sicily and afterwards to John, son of Ferdinand of Aragon; the second after her death made himself king of Navarre in spite of the claims of his son Charles, taking the title of John II. He was followed in 1479 by his daughter Eleanor, the wife of Gaston de Foix, and after her death in the same year Francis Phoebus, her grandson, succeeded, being crowned in 1482. At his death (1483) his sister Catherine, wife of Jean d’Albret, naturally succeeded, but, the latter having fallen under the papal ban, Ferdinand the Catholic in 1512 seized the whole of what is now Spanish Navarra, only the small portion of the kingdom on the French side of the Pyrenees being retained by Henry II., son of D’Albret(1516). Her grandson, Henry III. of Navarre, became king of France (Henry IV.) in 1589, and united non-Spanish Navarre to the French crown in 1607.
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