The ancient county became a duchy within the Principality of Catalonia in 1351 when King Peter III of Aragon gave the title of Duke to his first-born son, John.

In 1414, King Ferdinand I in turn gave the title of Prince of Girona to his first-born son, Alfonso.

For 400 years before that time, the Jewish cemetery was located beside the road to France, just north of the old city between the mountain Montjuïc, or hill of the Jews in medieval Catalan, and the river Ter.

During the Third siege of Girona of the Peninsular War, the city was besieged from May to December 1809 by 35,000 French Napoleonic troops under Vergier, Augereau and Gouvion Saint-Cyr.

Continuously under heavy bombardment, Girona held out obstinately under the leadership of Álvarez de Castro until disease and famine compelled it to capitulate on 12 December.

Girona was founded in a strategic place, in the natural corridor between the Empordà plain and the Catalan Coastal Depression, therefore connecting by land the northern Costa Brava and France with Barcelona and other southern populations.

This corridor is a defile formed by the Ter river between the Gavarres massif and the Catalan Transversal Range.

The ancient cathedral, which stood on the site of the present one, was used by the Moors as a mosque, and after their final expulsion was either entirely remodelled or rebuilt.

The present edifice is one of the most important monuments of the school of the Majorcan architect Jaume Fabre and an excellent example of Catalan Gothic architecture.

An aisle and chapels surround the choir, which opens by three arches into the nave, of which the pointed stone vault is the widest in Christendom (22 meters).

It is divided into three tiers of statuettes and reliefs, framed in canopied niches of cast and hammered silver.

The city wall of the old town was an important military construction built in Roman times in the 1st century BC.

It is possible to walk the walls and climb the towers, where visitors can enjoy panoramic views of Girona and the surrounding countryside.

It contains, besides the sepulchre of its patron and the tomb of the valiant Álvarez, a chapel dedicated to St. Narcissus, who according to tradition was one of the early bishops of the see.

The interest of the square lies in its 19th-century style, despite its being surrounded by identical austere neoclassical buildings with porches dedicated to the defenders of the city of Girona during the 1808 and 1809 sieges.

The municipal architect Martí Sureda was the first to conceive an arcaded square with closed and neoclassical loops, and with some buildings having matching aesthetic proportions.

This part of the city in Noucentisme style is a romantic and timeless creation that nowadays captivates inhabitants and visitors.

The façanes are painted according to a palette created by Enric Ansesa, James J. Faixó and the architects Fuses and J. Viader.

[5] When the dictator Francisco Franco died in November 1975, interest in the region's cultural history was revived.

[5] Excavations also turned up 1,200 old documents, including Talmudic commentary, accounts of domestic life, a description of the ancient synagogue and the names of Girona Jews who converted to Christianity in 1492.

[18] In the Spring of 1997, Marty Jemison, Tyler Hamilton and George Hincapie moved to Girona as teammates of the US Postal Service Professional Cycling Team.

This was the first year that American cyclists started living in Girona and meeting for training rides at the Pont de Pedra.

In December 2023, they recorded their first ever league victory over FC Barcelona to temporarily reach the top of the table.

The city has a roller hockey team, GEiEG, one of the most important in Spain, which competes in the main League OK Liga.

It grew tremendously principally as a result of Ryanair choosing it as one of their European hubs, but then shrunk again after they relocated most of the flights to Barcelona El Prat.